Failure of Fuel Tanks Due to High Velocity Projectiles Impact

The impact of high-velocity projectiles on fluid-filled containers is a matter of interest in the study of vehicle and aircraft vulnerability. In this paper, tests of high-velocity projectiles impacting typical truck-integrated fuel tanks were conducted. It is found that during a certain range of projectile impact energy before the fuel tank wall begins to crack, the deformation of the fuel tank wall does not increase with the increase of the projectile impact energy, while maintaining a certain value. Besides, this value is the same for both entry and exit walls. Preliminary finite element analysis shows that the HRAM loading during the cavity oscillation phase contributes to the deformation of the exit wall most.