Comment on: “Penetration into soil targets” (Int J Impact Eng 1992; 12: 427–444)

Abstract

In this study, we re-examined acceleration data from normal and oblique impacts from instrumented penetration experiments that were conducted into a semi-infinite Antelope Lake soil target, all at striking velocities of approximately 280 m/s. In particular we show that these experimental instrumented penetration results indicate target inertia does have some experimentally observable effects with these specific penetration events. Therefore, from these results it is concluded that target inertia should in fact be accounted for at least for this particular soil. Furthermore, the results from this study may in fact be true for other target materials. Therefore, it still does not appear conclusive that the deceleration is constant for all penetration events below questionable cavitation velocities, and if possible target inertia effects should be ruled out before proceeding with a constant deceleration penetration analysis.