A study of the perforation of stiffened plates by rigid projectiles

In the present paper, a four-stage perforation model that accurately predicts the residual velocity is developed by adopting an energy method. The four stages are plug formation, dishing formation, petal formation and projectile exit. In addition, some important experimental results are presented and analyzed to validate the present perforation model. In the experiments, high speed camera system is used to record the perforation process. Observations on target damage and measurements of initial velocities and residual velocities with the aid of the system are presented. Numerical simulations are carried out for projectiles against single and layered plates adopted in the experiments. The perforation process is studied and the deformation and failure modes are obtained. The predictions of numerical simulations and analytical model are found in reasonably good agreement with those of experiments, and can be used to predict the ballistic limit and residual velocity of stiffened plates perforated by rigid projectiles.