Penetration of Cylindrical Projectiles into Saturated Sandy Media

Abstract

The time and depth of vertical one-dimensional projectile penetration into sandy media in the near shore region are derived. A precise definition for the physical properties and for the behavior of the sandy medium following the projectile impact are evaluated. Three separate time intervals following projectile impact are identified. During the first 3 ms of penetration, the deviatoric friction stress is shown to be negligible and the integrated Mie–Gruneisen equation of state (or, equivalently, the Hugoniot-adiabat) may be applied to compute the normal penetration resistance force from the sand pressure. In order to compute sand pressure as a function of the sand density D by the integrated Mie–Gruneisen equation of state, the Mie–Gruneisen dimensionless constants γ0 and s and the dimensional speed of sound C 0 in the sandy medium are required. In order to illustrate the one-dimensional shock wave propagation in both wet and dry sands, Hugoniot data for wet and dry silica sands are evaluated by a three degrees of freedom algorithm to compute these required constants. The numerical results demonstrate that the amplitude of the shock wave pressure in the wet silica sand (41% porosity) is approximately one-third of the shock wave pressure amplitudes in the dry silica sands (22% and 41% porosity). In addition, the shock wave pressure dampens quicker in the wet sand than in the dry sands.