Impact and travel of projectiles in granular media has intrigued engineers and physicists dating as far back as the mid eighteenth century. Initially, interest in the subject stemmed from military applications. Over the past century, research has also been motivated by civilian applications in a number of related areas, including: subsurface investigation of soil and rock, particularly at inaccessible locations and extraterrestrial surfaces, planetary impact, installation of deep sea anchors and foundations, nuclear waste disposal, mining, and aircraft landing studies.
The travel of projectiles is conventionally divided into exterior ballistics dealing with projectile behavior prior to impact, and terminal ballistics associated with the deceleration of projectiles at impact and penetration. NYU geotechnical group has been studying terminal ballistics in soils, with emphasis on sand. This web site provides information on (1) the response of sand under high strain rate (HSR) loading, (2) the mechanics of penetration in soils, (3) a summary of visualization experiments done at NYU and collaborating universities.
PRIMARY REFERENCES
- Iskander, M., S. Bless, and M. Omidvar (2015), “Rapid Penetration into Granular Media. Visualizing the Fundamental Physics of Rapid Earth Penetration”, ISBN: 978-0128008683, Elsevier, 458p [link]
- Omidvar, M., M. Iskander and S. Bless (2014), “Response of granular media to rapid penetration,” International Journal of Impact Engineering, Vol. 66, pp. 60-82, doi: 10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2013.12.004, Elsevier [link]
- Omidvar, M., M. Iskander and S. Bless (2013), “Stress strain behavior of sand at high strain rates,” International Journal of Impact Engineering, Vol. 49, pp. 192-213, doi: 10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2012.03.004, Elsevier [link]
