Benchmarking the SPHINX and CTH shock physics codes for three problems in ballistics

The CTH Eulerian hydrocode, and the SPHINX smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code were used to model a shock tube, two long rod penetrations into semi-infinite steel targets, and a long rod penetration into a spaced plate array. The results were then compared to experimental data. Both SPHINX and CTH modeled the one-dimensional shock tube problem well. Both codes did a reasonable job in modeling the outcome of the axisymmetric rod impact problem. Neither code correctly reproduced the depth of penetration in both experiments. In the 3-D problem, both codes reasonably replicated the penetration of the rod through the first plate. After this, however, the predictions of both codes began to diverge from the results seen in the experiment. In terms of computer resources, the run times are problem dependent, and are discussed in the text