On the penetration of nonaxisymmetric bodies into a deformable solid medium and their shape optimization

We consider the problem of penetration of rigid pyramidal bodies (impactors) into a strained medium in the case of large speeds of penetration and estimate the depth of the impactor penetration. To this end, we use the two-stage penetration model proposed by Forrestall. We state the shape optimization problem for the penetrating body, which is based on the consideration of a set of bodies of pyramidal external shape with given fixed mass. We study both solid and hollow (shell-shaped) bodies. For the optimization functional we take the penetration depth of the penetrating body, and for the projection variable we take the number of faces of the pyramidal body. We present the results of computations of the penetration depth for different shapes of the impactor and show that, both for shells and solid impactors, the bodies of the shape of a circular cone are optimal. The problems of high-speed penetration of rigid bodies into a deformable medium are nowadays very topical problems 1] which have been studied by Russian and foreign authors 2–8].