Damage-potential comparison of spherical and cylindrical projectiles impacting on a system of bumper plates

This paper describes a series of smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of tungsten cylindrical and spherical projectiles impacting steel bumper plates at different impact configurations. Comparisons of the destructive capabilities of the spherical and cylindrical projectiles for each impact configuration are presented. Cylindrical geometries were spatially rotated to cover a wide range of impact configurations. The incidence angle of the velocity vector and its magnitude were varied. A rational approach is proposed to quantify the level of damage inflicted on the bumper plates on each impact event. This damage measure is used to create a set of comparative damage matrixes for cylindrical and spherical projectiles that identify under which impact configurations a given geometry is more damaged than the other.