Session: 01-09-01: Peridynamics and Its Applications

Paper Number: 110923

110923 - Deformation and Damage in Metallic Structures Due to High-Speed Soft and Hard Particle Impacts 

With the growing interest in space exploration, high-speed flights (supersonic and hypersonic) have been of particular interest recently for both commercial and military industries. Aerospace vehicles encounter airborne particles during their operation regularly. Vehicle impact with these particles, which may be soft (rain, ice) or hard (sand, dust, debris), may lead to damage on the surfaces of the vehicles. During the collision event, part of the kinetic energy of the projectile is absorbed by the vehicle surface, which may lead to permanent damage and reveal itself as plastic deformation or fracture, or both, depending on the material characteristics. The surface materials used in high-speed aircraft include ceramics, composites, and metals. These material types have different mechanical properties, and their deformation and failure behaviors vary significantly; while ceramic materials are brittle, metals generally exhibit a ductile behavior. Commonly used metal materials for aerospace vehicles can be listed as aluminum, copper, stainless steel, and titanium alloys. These materials are preferred because of their ability to maintain their integrity under extreme conditions.
Computational methods provide the means to investigate various loading conditions and part designs in short succession. Accurate computational approaches for high-speed particle impact events need to account for multiple physical mechanisms at play, including the deformability and frangibility of the airborne particle, impact and contact mechanics, and deformation and damage behavior of the aerospace vehicle surface material. The peridynamic approach has a unique combination of desired features to address this class of problems. It is a generalization of the standard equations of continuum mechanics compatible with the mathematical discontinuities in growing cracks and damage within a single framework. In this study, a meshless discretization of the peridynamic equations was used. This approach offers a combination of advantages for this application: (1) It avoids mesh tangling and distortion since it is meshless, (2) it allows arbitrary changes in the connectivity of the nodes, enabling target material to be ejected, and (3) it allows incorporation of the standard shock physics equations, including equations of state.
This study investigates the deformation and damage behavior of metallic structures subjected to high-speed particle impact using a peridynamics approach. Two particular problems of interest with hard and soft (liquid) projectiles impacting metallic targets were considered. A peridynamic implementation of the Johnson-Cook material model was used for the solid materials. In all problems, peridynamic results were compared against the experimental measurements.

Presenting Author: Riza Kaan Gonuleri Virginia Commonwealth University

Presenting Author Biography: Riza Kaan Gonuleri is a graduate research assistant and a Ph.D. student at Virginia Commonwealth University, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department.

Authors:

Riza Kaan Gonuleri Virginia Commonwealth University
Ibrahim Guven Virginia Commonwealth University