The Influence of Projectile Hardness on Ballistic Limit Velocities

The ballistic performance of 17 penetrator materials, representing 5 distinct steel alloys treated to various hardnesses along with one tungsten alloy, has been investigated. Residual lengths and velocities, as well as the ballistic limit velocities, were determined experimentally for each of the alloy types for L/D 10 projectiles against finite-thick (T/D = 3.55) armor steel targets. For some of the projectil types, a harder target, with the same thickness, was also used. It was found that the ballistic limit velocity decreases significantly when the projectile hardness exceeds that of the target. Additionally, it is found that the residual projectile length is quite sensitive to projectile hardness. Numerical simulations are used to investigate some of the observed trends.