A study of the effect of projectile orientation on the results of ballistic impact tests as described in the EASA CS-25 regulations for fuel tank access covers

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an investigation of the ballistic limits and failure modes of AA2024-T351 sheets impacted with cubical projectiles. The experiment/test setup was based on EASA CS-25 regulations for fuel tank access covers. The effect of cube orientation on the ballistic limit and failure modes was considered in detail. A 25% variation in ballistic limit was observed with the lowest ballistic limit (202 m/s) observed for the cubical projectile edge impacted on the target. In the cube face impacts, the ballistic limit was higher (223 m/s), and the highest ballistic limit (254 m/s) was observed for the corner impact. The observed differences in the ballistic limit were due to differences in failure mechanism, which resulted in different localised deformations near the projectile impact point, but also led to differences in global dishing deformation.