Velocity Limits for Rigid Body Penetrators With Ogive Noses

In this paper, the authors use recent results for predicting the onset of lateral instability to discuss the limitations on rigid body penetration. An analysis of lateral instability was proposed in [1] and verified experimentally for laboratory-scale projectiles [2]. After the onset of lateral instability, declining performance was observed even though the projectile does not catastrophically fail. The authors utilized an analysis to estimate the critical velocity at which the penetrator becomes laterally unstable. With this estimate, a maximum penetration depth for each penetrator aspect ratio is predicted. The objective of the analysis is to determine the velocity limits to achieve the maximize penetration depth. The results are supported by a limited set of experimental data.