Numerical Simulation of a Ballistic Impact on Tensylon® UHMWPE Laminates Using the Plastic Kinematic Model in LS-Dyna®

Digital Object Identifier 10.32754/JMT.2018.1.08 43 Abstract—Based on experimental results, the numerical simulation of a ballistic impact between a Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) laminate panel and a 7.62×39 lead core bullet is performed. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that a simple constitutive model, such as the plastic kinematic model available in LS-Dyna® version R7.0.0, can be used to accurately describe real ballistic impact events with UHMWPE laminate targets, which are normally simulated using orthotropic material models. Two representations of the UHMWPE laminate panel are proposed: a version constituted by a number of identical layers, treated individually as isentropic solids with the possibility of detaching from each other (in order to simulate delamination), and a version containing additional layers between the main UHMWPE layers, having the role of acting, on one hand, as an interface which plays the main role in delamination phenomenon and, on the other hand, to introduce a softer component by imitating the behavior of a resin. Having clearly advantages over the simple non-adhesive version, the adhesive version proposed within this paper had a less accurate performance than the simple version.