Comparative analysis of experimental and numerical investigation on multiple projectile impact of AA5083 friction stir welded targets

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 18; no. 7; p. e0285254
• Main Authors: Balaji, S, Dharani Kumar, S, Magarajan, U, RameshBabu, S, Ganeshkumar, S, Sharma, Shubham, Abdelmohsen, Shaimaa A M, Saha, Indranil, Eldin, Sayed M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 27.07.2023
• Subjects: Alloys; Aluminum; Aluminum base alloys; Antiballistic materials; Armor; Ballistics; Comparative analysis; Computer and Information Sciences; Corrosion resistance; Defense industry; Energy absorption; Engineering and Technology; Finite element method; Force and energy; Friction; Friction stir welding; Kinetic energy; Mathematical models; Numerical analysis; Physical Sciences; Plastic deformation; Projectiles; Strain hardening; Vehicles; Velocity; Welding; Weldments; India
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285254

This research aims to investigate the ballistic resistance of base material (BM)and "Friction Stir Welded (FSW)", AA5083 aluminum alloy. The primary objective was to build a finite element model to predict kinetic energy absorption and target deformation under single and multiple projectile impact conditions. This study employed 7.62mm Hard Steel Core (HSC) projectiles produced from Steel 4340. The target was analyzed using commercially available Abaqus Explicit software for Finite Element Analysis. It was noticed that the generation of kinetic energy and surface residual velocity increases as the number of projectile strikes increases. In addition, the experimental ballistic test was conducted to validate the numerical results. Using the analytical Recht-Ipson model, each target's experimental residual velocity was determined. It was determined that weldments perform less well (30%) as compared to BM targets. Occurrence of plastic deformation during welding causes reduction in ballistic performance of weldments. For both the computational and experimental approaches, a correlation between residual velocities was found. The plastic deformations with ductile hole formation were observed in all the cases.