Trajectory Investigation of a Transonic Spherical Projectile under Hop-Up Mechanism Using Simulation of Turbulent Three-Dimensional Non-Stationary Flow

Improvement of shooting accuracy with air gun pellets is very important in sport competitions which is always questioned by shooting enthusiasts. In this study, the performance of a transonic spherical projectile as an air gun pellet with 4.5 mm-caliber under a mechanism known as Hop-up is numerically examined. The motion of this projectile is assumed in four degrees of freedom including three translational motions and one transverse rotational motion. Hop-up mechanism is resulted in a rotational motion of spherical projectile, so a Magnus Force is generated which prevents the altitude loss of the projectile. The Navier-Stokes equations are solved in compressible non-stationary turbulent conditions with equations of the pellet motion in a coupled form and in a moving computational grid by a computer program. The present numerical simulation is based on “Roe” scheme with second-order accuracy using a finite volume method and because of the importance of time dependent parameters, second-order time accurate was applied. To validate the computer program operation, the results were compared to valid experimental data. The results obtained from these studies showed that proper rotation of the projectile for a certain distance prevents its height drop when hits the target. A relation was also obtained between the target location, shooting kinetic energy and proper angular velocity which can neutralize the projectile altitude loss at arbitrary distavces. It is also demonstrated that by increasing the angular velocity, the vortex shedding onset is accelerated and the projectile momentum is decreased.