Numerical Simulation of Kinetic Kill Vehicle Impacting Biological Submunition Payloads

Damage behavior of biological submunition payloads directly impacted by Kinetic Kill Vehicle (KKV) is studied by numerical simulation based on Autodyn-3D software. Target characteristics and structure equivalent model of the biological submunition payload and KKV are analyzed and obtained. Three factors including hit-point position, strike angle and KKV's diameter are chosen to study the damage behavior. Three types of damage behaviors of biological submunitions, including deformation, partial disintegration and completely disintegration occur in simulation. As for influencing factors, hit-point position has little influence on damage effect when hit-point is not at either ends. While number of damaged submunitions firstly increases and then decreases with increasing of strike angle when hit-point is near the center of the submunition payload. For the given KKV, number of damaged submunitions increases significantly at the strike angle of 60° compared with the vertical impact. With increasing of the KKV's diameter, number of completely disintegrated submunitions increases dramatically and the damage degree and deformation range of the payload skin gradually increases. Research in this paper could provide useful references for the optimization structural of KKV, selection of terminal encounter condition, and assessment of kinetic midcourse anti-missile interception.