We study axisymmetric deformations of depleted uranium (DU) and tungsten heavy alloy (WHA) rods impacting at normal incidence both a rigid, planar target and a thick, deformable steel target. Each deformable material is modeled as elastic thermoviscoplastic; the flow stress increases with an increase in the effective plastic strain and effective plastic strain-rate but decreases with a rise in the temperature. An objective of this work is to ascertain when and where a shear band, defined as a narrow region of rapid, intense plastic deformation, forms in each material subject to impact loading. The Taylor impact simulations show that shear bands form earlier in WHA than in DU for the material parameters used. In the penetration simulations, shear bands form continuously in the ejecta of the DU penetrator while only one shear band occurs in the WHA ejecta followed by more uniform deformations.

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