Numerical simulation of transient thermal response of composite material barrel during gun firing

This paper has established the 2-D analysis model of the composite material barrel via finite element method. By direct coupling analysis, the variation regularity of the temperature field and dynamic stress field of the composite material barrel on firing is obtained. The error of the simulation results and test results on firing is within 4%. The simulation results show that 20% of the total mass of the tube will be reduced and 15% stiffness is increased if part of the metal is replaced by composite material. But because of the low heat capacity per unit volume and thermal conductivity of composite material, the powder gas with high temperature causes large transient thermal stress and the transient thermal impact influences the linear strength obviously and it causes the increase of the average temperature and the decrease of the erosion and wear life of the tube. Therefore, we should adopt measures of the right amount addition of metal powder into resin matrix and so on to enhance the thermal transfer performance of composite material barrel as far as possible.