The Role of Simulation in Long-rod Ricochet Phenomenon

Ricochet of a tungsten long-rod projectile from oblique steel plates was investigated numerically, using two explicit finite element methods. These two methods are lagrange and SPH (smooth particle hydrodynamic). Critical ricochet angles were calculated for various impact velocities and strengths of the target plates in Lagrange and SPH methods. It was predicted that in both methods, the critical ricochet angle increases with decreasing the impact velocities and that higher ricochet angles were expected, if higher strength target materials were employed. The experimental results were compared with those predicted by the simulations and with the existing two-dimensional analytical model. Through investigation of the angles in which projectile only ricochets, both SPH and lagrange methods represent approximately, the same results. However, in the cases that projectile begins to crack in head region out of high impact angles, the SPH method yields better results. One other advantage of the SPH method is that no erosion occurs when using the SPH method. This means better satisfaction of the conservation of mass principle. Therefore, the correlation between the numerical and the available experimental data demonstrates that the SPH approach is a very accurate and effective analysis technique for long rod ricochet phenomena in ricochet of Tungsten rod with RHA target.