A theoretical model of rigid projectile perforation of concrete slabs using the energy method

Projectile perforation of concrete slabs will produce numerous concrete fragments on the rear face of the concrete slabs. These concrete fragments will cause serious secondary damage to the indoor personnel and equipment of protective structures. Accurately evaluating the damage area of concrete slabs is an important problem. Therefore, a theoretical model of a rigid projectile perforation of concrete slabs is constructed using the energy method in this paper. In this model, a new shear failure method is proposed to calculate the energy consumption of the shear formation by combining with the von-Mises failure criterion and failure strain. Based on the energy conservation and principle of minimum potential energy, explicit equations for the perforation performance are formulated. The theoretical predictions agree well with the experimental results. Furthermore, experiments on a high-speed projectile normal perforation of concrete are carried out to verify the accuracy of the corresponding theoretical prediction.