Transient Response of a Projectile in Gun Launch Simulation Using Lagrangian and ALE Methods

This paper describes the usefulness of Lagrangian and arbitrary Lagrangian/Eulerian (ALE) methods in simulating the gun launch dynamics of a generic artillery component subjected to launch simulation in an air gun test. Lagrangian and ALE methods are used to simulate the impact mitigation environment in which the kinetic energy of a projectile is absorbed by the crushing of an aluminum honeycomb mitigator. Issues related to the effectiveness of these methods in simulating a high degree of distortion of Aluminum honeycomb mitigator with the commonly used material models (metallic honeycomb and crushable foam) are discussed. Both computational methods lead to the same prediction for the deceleration of the test projectile and are able to simulate the behavior of the projectile. Good agreement between the test results and the predicted projectile response is achieved via the presented models and the methods employed.