General
An early result is due to Newton; the impact depth of any projectile is the depth that a projectile will reach before stopping in a medium; in Newtonian mechanics a projectile stops when it has transferred its momentum to an equal mass of the medium. If the impactor and medium have similar density this happens at an impact depth equal to the length of the impactor.
For this simple result to be valid, the arresting medium is considered to have no integral shear strength. Note that even though the projectile has stopped, the momentum is still transferred, and in the real world spalling and similar effects can occur.
Read more about this topic: Terminal Ballistics
Famous quotes containing the word general:
“The general will is always right.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“The man who would change the name of Arkansas is the original, iron-jawed, brass-mouthed, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of the Ozarks! He is the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the smallpox on his mother’s side!”
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)