Damage modeling for Taylor impact simulations

Abstract
G. I. Taylor showed that dynamic material properties could be deduced from the impact of a projectile against a rigid boundary. The Taylor anvil test became very useful with the advent of numerical simulations and has been used to infer and/or to validate material constitutive constants. A new experimental facility has been developed to conduct Taylor anvil impacts to support validation of constitutive constants used in simulations. Typically, numerical simulations are conducted assuming 2-D cylindrical symmetry, but such computations cannot hope to capture the damage observed in higher velocity experiments. A computational study was initiated to examine the ability to simulate damage and subsequent deformation of the Taylor specimens. Three-dimensional simulations, using the Johnson-Cook damage model, were conducted with the nonlinear Eulerian wavecode CTH. The results of the simulations are compared to experimental deformations of 6061-T6 aluminum specimens as a function of impact velocity, and conclusions regarding the ability to simulate fracture and reproduce the observed deformations are summarized.