Experimental and numerical study on the cumulative damage of water-filled containers impacted by two projectiles

Abstract

High-velocity impact on fluid-filled containers is a matter of interest in the studies of aircraft fuel tank vulnerability. Most of the conducted studies have addressed this problem by considering single impact. However, the present study evaluated experimentally the cumulative damage of a water-filled container impacted by two spherical projectiles with varying velocities in the range of 1000 m/s and 1500 m/s. A specially designed aluminum sabot was used to enable a 25 mm powder gun to accelerate two tungsten projectiles simultaneously. The failure modes of the plates were also analyzed after the experiments. LS-DYNA code was used to simulate this complex fluid–structure interaction problem. The residual velocity of the projectile, pressure within the water, and plate deformation profile obtained from both the experiment and simulation were compared to verify the simulation model. The experimentally verified finite element models were further used to investigate several critical factors in cumulative damage.