Numerical investigation on effect of different projectile nose shapes on ballistic impact of additively manufactured AlSi10Mg alloy

Abstract

In the last few years, due to the superior mechanical qualities of Additive Manufacturing (AM) AlSi10Mg alloy to those of traditional casting process AlSi10Mg alloys, the application of AM technology has significantly increased. The ballistic impact research has a wide range of uses, notably in the mining, construction, spacecraft and defence sectors. This work focuses on analyzing the behavior of different projectile nose shapes on the AlSi10Mg alloy fabricated by AM. There are several projectile nose forms to consider, including blunt, hemispherical, conical, and ogive shapes. The impact of various projectile shapes on the ballistic limit of the additively created AlSi10Mg alloy is carefully examined in this study. All numerical simulations were carried out using LS-DYNA software, and the Johnson-Cook material and damage model were considered to assess the ballistic resistance behavior. The ballistic limit for various projectile shapes is computed using the Jonas-Lambert model, which describes the connection between residual velocity and starting projectile velocity. The results showed that, the ogive-shaped Projectile offers the highest ballistic limit, and the blunt projectile shows the lowest ballistic limit for a 5 mm thin target plate. The ballistic impact phenomenon showed plugging failure for the blunt nose projectile, the formation of plug and small fragments were observed in the case of hemispherical nose projectile, fragmenting failure is observed with radial necking in the case of conical nose projectile and petals are formed at the impacted zone in ogive nose shape projectile. Moreover, the ballistic limit of AM AlSi10Mg alloy was slightly higher compared to the ballistic limit of the die-cast AlSi10Mg alloy for the 7.62 mm AP bullet (core). Therefore, AM AlSi10Mg alloy may have equal or good ballistic properties compared to die-cast AlSi10Mg alloy.