The effect of internal ballistic behaviour to the sizing of the barrel wall

The durability, as well as lightness, have an important place in today?s defence industry products. This is mostly related with the choosing of light material and optimum dimensions. In this sense, to acquire dimensions safely, gun design and the analysis of the system are both part of the indispensable process steps. In this study M101?s gun barrel is lightened from 270 kgs to 115,95 kgs with 1,25 safety factor whose lenght and interior diameter are certain .During the lightening the aim is to calculate and optimize barrel thickness through the barrel axis with the pressures values after the explosion, which is hard to solve by analitical methods. As the barrel can not be distinguished from the system it belongs, the weapon system is explained with sub systems. In addition, the fundamental equations of interior ballistics are mentioned, ammuniton and gun systems are classified, the term of ?optimization? is explained and analyzing steps of the methods and assumptions are followed and given. In this sense, pressure values of selected munition are obtained with the ?PRODAS? programme. The barrel is designed by ?CATIA? which is a 3D design programme and the model is transferred to the ?ANSYS WORKBENCH? finite element software. The model here is solved and critical locations in the distribution of stresses are determined. According to these high stress values, barrel thickness is optimized with safety factor and contribution of Autofrettage Process. During the analysis, the obtained pressure values are evaluated and studied algorithms to input these values in to the model correctly. Finally, a system is created that could represent a real explosion situation. Ballistic values re-analyzed with Vallier-Heydenreich method and stress values are re-analyzed with using Lame Equations. Then the results are compared with each other and discussed about the reasons of differences. In this way, an approach is developed to lead academic studies which are about the optimization of barrel thickness in the systems whose barrel material, caliber, length and ammunition parameters are certain.Key Words : Ballistic, explicit, barrel