Simulating Hypervelocity Impact and Material Failure in Glass

Simulating hypervelocity impact introduces a host of complexities due to inherent strain, pressure and strain rate sensitivities. Brittle materials, and glasses in particular, exhibit significant deviations from their respective quasi-static responses, displaying permanent densification, gradual softening, and significant variation in response depending on the degree of material damage. This work seeks to examine the evolution of material failure due to hypervelocity impact of a spherical steel projectile in to a soda-lime target plate over a range of impact velocities via the utilization of a scalable, explicit finite element code, Velodyne, and a high strain rate, brittle material model. It is shown that, by analyzing both the evolutionary instantaneous and accumulated failure behaviors, the resulting performance is profoundly effected by target/projectile geometries, as well as the complex behaviors observed with respect to shock propagation, reflection and interference.