A gas-gun facility for material impact studies using low-velocity, low-mass projectiles

Abstract

A laboratory scale gas gun and associated instrumentation have been designed and constructed as a tool for transverse impact experiments on composite materials at velocities in the range 200-750 m s-1, using projectiles of 5.59 and 7.62 mm diameter (0.22 and 0.30 calibre respectively) which simulate fragments of larger munitions. Good agreement is obtained between the measured projectile velocities and those calculated from an approximate theoretical dynamic gas model.