Virtual Experiments to Determine Behind-armor Debris for Survivability Analysis

When a projectile perforates the armor of a vehicle, the residual projectile entering the vehicle is accompanied by a much wider cloud of behind-armor debris (BAD) generated by stress wave interactions. BAD plays an important role in the evaluation of survivability of crew and components in a vehicle under fire. Survivability/vulnerability analysis codes (e.g., MUVES) require an input of BAD characteristics of the armor for each threat projectile. This data is currently generated by conducting laboratory experiments in a standard set-up in which each threat projectile is fired on the actual armor and the BAD pattern is captured on witness plates. Conducting survivability analyses of vehicles in the design phase, before the armor is actually built, poses a challenging problem. To solve this problem, we have come up with an innovative approach to determine BAD characteristics by conducting virtual experiments of the standard set-up. We do this by conducting physics-based three-dimensional (3-D) computer simulations with the CTH wave code. We obtain BAD characteristics for impacts of kinetic energy rods and shapedcharges on metal and ceramics plates, including some yawed rod impacts. An additional advantage of these simulations is that they provide important details of the debris field that are difficult to obtain in laboratory experiments. The expected impact of this work would be to improve the timeliness, accuracy, and cost of survivability analyses for Army's decision makers.