AN EMPIRICAL-EQUATION FOR PENETRATION DEPTH OF OGIVE-NOSE PROJECTILES INTO CONCRETE TARGETS

We conducted depth of penetration experiments with ogive-nose projectiles and concrete targets with unconfined compressive strengths of nominally 14 MPa (2 ksi), 35 MPa (5 ksi), and 97 MPa (14 ksi). From our data and the data presented by Canfield and Clator [J. A. CANFIELD and I. G. CLATOR, Development of a scaling law and techniques to investigate penetration in concrete. NWL Report No. 2057, U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory, Dahlgren, VA (1966)] [1], we developed an empirical equation for penetration depth of ogive-nose projectiles penetrating concrete targets at normal impact. Our penetration equation contains a single, dimensionless empirical constant that depends only on the unconfined compressive strength of the target. We determine the empirical constant from penetration depth versus striking velocity data with six sets of penetration data for striking velocities between 250 and 800 m/s. Predictions are in good agreement with all six data sets.