Dynamic stress analysis of anisotropic gun barrel under coupled thermo-mechanical loads via finite element method

Abstract This work focused on the stress response of anisotropic 30SiMn2MoVA steel gun barrel under coupled thermo-mechanical loads, namely, the contact pressure and friction of projectile, thermal load and pressure of propellant gas. The effect of temperature on the mechanical properties of gun barrel was considered. Two thermal-displacement coupled finite element models (FEM) were built by ABAQUS software. The first was the interaction model of projectile and barrel which was to calculate the stress of barrel engraved by copper jacket and steel jacket projectile. The results of barrel in the interaction model, as an initial condition, were imported to the second FEM which was applied with thermal load and pressure of propellant gas. The results show that the rifling at chamber throat has the largest stress and circumferential stress under coupled loads. It gives a request that the gun barrel should have the better circumferential mechanical properties. The plastic deformation of the rifling at the chamber throat is observed which indicates that 30SiMn2MoVA gun barrel has a low service life due to the poor mechanical properties.