Experimental and numerical investigation of internal inversion of metallic cylindrical shells under axial impact

In this paper, the internal inversion process of metallic cylindrical shells under dynamic axial loading is investigated experimentally and numerically. Experimental tests are performed on the steel tubes in a gas gun and the required force for internal inversion is obtained using the measurement system of impact loadings. Also, numerical analysis is carried out by the finite element software ABAQUS and the accuracy of simulated models are validated with the experimental results. In this paper, all geometrical properties of the tubes and die are assumed to be constant and the effect of the projectile mass and velocity is investigated on the shortening and energy absorption of the tubes which are affected by axial impact in the internal inversion process. Therefore the projectile is shot directly to the specimen with different masses and velocities. It is observed that if the projectile mass remains constant, increasing in the impact velocity has almost no effect on the constant inversion load and just increase the tube displacement but if the impact velocity remains constant, increasing the amount of projectile mass causes increasing in the constant inversion load besides of increasing in tube displacement. Comparing the results of numerical simulations with the experimental results shows a good agreement between them.