Numerical and experimental study of the projectile penetration into soil mass

Today, the units for impact penetration of projectiles deep into soil masses have found wide practical application. These setups were developed on the basis of artillery systems, the massive punches (projectiles) of which are able to develop penetration rates as high as hundreds of meters per second. Our study involves experimental investigations and theoretical developments. Experiments are designed to elaborate and adjust technical systems and to estimate their power capacity, reliability and efficiency. Numerical modeling of the physical processes allows us to obtain the evaluation data, to analyze the influence of different mechanical parameters of soils and to state optimization problems. In our previous works we have developed a numerical scheme for simulation of the impact and penetration processes, which in this paper are applied for modeling the penetration process of the projectile-punch into soil mass in the range of penetration rates up to 600 meters per second. The paper presents a description of the experimental scheme and some experimental results.