Penetration Depth of Projectiles into Soil Covered Concrete Targets

The interest of using geo-materials as an ordinance barrier has provided the motivation for studying projectile penetration into soil covered concrete targets for many decades. Protection of sensitive concrete structures against projectile penetration is usually accomplished by using soil layers. One of the main problems is how to estimate and determine the thickness of the covered material and at the same time calculate the crater depth of the concrete when subjected to high velocity projectiles.The aim of this paper is to determine the crater depth of an ogive-nose shape steel projectile penetrating into a concrete target covered with soil. To achieve this objective spherical cavity expansion theory is employed and an analytical model for penetration depth is developed. Also, penetration process into soil covered target is simulated using LS- DYNA capabilities. The results of the simulation and analytical formula are compared and a good agreement is recorded.