Failure analysis of plastic spherical shells impacted by a projectile

The main objective of the current work is to present an adequate model for the large deformation of a plastic spherical shell impacted by a projectile. On the basis of experiments, the deformation mode of a spherical shell was developed by introducing an isometric transformation of surface bending and the Perzyna-Symonds viscoplastic constitutive equations. By adopting a numerical method, the deformation of a spherical shell under local impact was investigated and the deformation mode was obtained. Finally, a comparison made between theoretical predictions, numerical results and experimental values indicated that the three groups of results were in better conformity with each other. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.