Discrete-element simulation of a spherical projectile penetration into a massive obstacle

А discrete element model is applied to the problem of a spherical projectile penetration into a mas-sive obstacle. According to the model both indenter and obstacle are described by a set of densely packed parti-cles. To model the interaction between the particles the two-parameter Lennard-Jones potential is used. Com-puter implementation of the model has been carried out using parallelism on GPUs, which resulted in high spatial - temporal resolution. Based on the comparison of the results of numerical simulation with experimental data the binding energy has been identified as a function of the dynamic hardness of materials. It is shown that the use of this approach allows to accurately describe the penetration process in the range of projectile velocities 500-2500 m/s.