Assessment of penetration resistance of sand materials for aircraft protection fortifications

Abstract

Constructing field fortifications using local materials to protect aircraft from penetrating objects is a common practice when rapidly deploying protective structures at aircraft aprons. This solution has the advantages of high flexibility, mobility, ease of construction, and cost-effectiveness compared to other aircraft protection structure solutions. This paper focuses on numerical simulation using Abaqus software to analyze the penetration capability of steel penetrators when using coral sand from the East Vietnam Sea region and red sand from the Phan Thiet area in Vietnam as filling materials. The numerical simulation results indicate that coral sand material in the offshore islands of Vietnam has better penetration resistance compared to Phan Thiet red sand, which has a smaller grain size modulus. The penetration depth of the penetrator in the case of red sand and coral sand is 0.70 m and 0.495 m, respectively, with calculated penetration resistance coefficients (K_x) for the two materials being 69.3.10^-7 and 49.0.10^-7, respectively. These findings provide an initial basis for researching, designing, and applying field fortification structures for aircraft protection using local materials.