Investigation of Skin Material Models for Ballistic Response

Skin can be modeled using a variety of material models to depict its mechanical behavior. Skin shows different behavior like anisotropy, nonlinearity, strain rate dependency, viscoelasticity. Several experiments are conducted and presented in the literature for the mechanical characterization of skin. The primary skin material models are elastic, viscoelastic, and hyperelastic. The best suitable material model among them in case of ballistic or penetrating impact is not studied. The objective of this work is to study the sensitivity of choice of material model to the ballistic response. Towards this end, the data from the projectile-skin impact experiments are used to assess the suitability of a specific material model. The number of ballistic impact simulations are performed using 0.16-, 0.49- and 1.1-gram fragment simulating projectile (FSP) using various material models of skin. A dynamic explicit solver LS-Dyna is used to investigate ballistic limit, failure mechanism, and stress-strain responses. Detailed results are presented and discussed in terms of agreement between simulation and experiments against the aforementioned parameters. Viscoelastic material model was found best suitable material for ballistic impact simulation on skin. This work will be helpful in selecting the skin material model for penetrating ballistic impacts.