Experimental and numerical investigation of the dynamic behaviour of a ballistic plastilina using an adapted Taylor impact test

An adapted version of the Taylor impact test was developed to study the dynamic behaviour of a specific red Weible® plastilina. Instead of accelerating Taylor test samples composed of the studied plastilina with standard methods using pyrotechnic or pneumatic launchers, the drop tower principle was considered. Cylindrical samples of ballistic plastilina were prepared with care, conditioned at a specific temperature, equipped with a stabilising wing, and simply dropped from different heights on a thick rigid glass target plate. Two high-speed cameras were used to record the impact of the samples from the side and bottom. The dynamic deformation and final state of the samples were evaluated and used to validate corresponding multi-material arbitrary-Lagrangian–Eulerian-based numerical simulations. A two-parameter strain-rate-based constitutive equation, already used in previous studies, was used to model the behaviour of the plastilina. The real-time deformations observed during the tests and simulation were compared. Satisfying correlations were obtained between the tests and models in terms of the dynamic deformation of plastilina. Consequently, the adapted Taylor impact test using the drop-tower principle is a promising method for testing the dynamic behaviour of very soft or (like-a-)fluid materials. However, the stabilisation of the fall of the samples should be improved to ensure normal impacts of the samples. Additionally, some nonintuitive phenomena observed during the experiments indicated that more studies implicating complex (like-a-)fluid materials such as plastilina should be carried out to better understand their behaviours under dynamic loading.