Experimental and Numerical Investigations of High-Speed Projectile Impacts on 7075-T651 Aluminum Plates

Simulation of the material failure under high strain rate conditions is one of the most difficult problems in the finite element analyses, and many researchers have tried to understand and reproduce dynamic material fracture. In this study, we investigate a failure criterion that minimizes the mesh dependency at high strain rates and incorporates the criterion into the Johnson-Cook constitutive relationship by developing a user-defined material model. Impact tests were performed using a gas-gun system in order to investigate the response of the 7075-T651 aluminum plate in high-speed collision. On the other hand, numerical simulations are carried out by considering various element sizes and the relationship between element size and failure strain is inversely obtained using numerical results. By accommodating the relationship into the damage model and implementing in the user-defined material model, mesh dependency is significantly reduced, and sufficient accuracy is achieved with alleviated computational cost than the existing damage model. This study suggests an element size-dependent damage criterion that is applicable for impact simulation and it is expected that the criterion is useful to obtain accurate impact responses with a small computational cost.