Study on performance degradation and failure analysis of machine gun barrel

An increase in the use of the gun barrel will cause wear of the inner wall, which reduces the muzzle velocity and the spin rate of the projectile. The off-bore flight attitude and trajectory of the projectile also change, affecting the shooting power and the accuracy. Exterior ballistic data of a high-speed spinning projectile are required to study the performance change. Therefore, based on the barrel's accelerated life test, the whole process of projectile shooting is reproduced using numerical simulation technology, and key information on the ballistic performance change at each shooting stage are acquired. Studies have shown that in the later stages of barrel shooting, the accuracy of shooting has not decreased significantly. However, it is found that the angle of attack of the projectile increases as the wear of the barrel increases. The maximum angle of attack reaches 0.106 rad when the number of shots reaches 4300. Meanwhile, elliptical bullet hole has appeared on the target at this shooting stage. Through combining external ballistic theory with simulation results, the primary reason of this phenomenon is found to be a significant decrease in the muzzle spin rate of the projectile. At the end of the barrel life, the projectile muzzle spin rate is 57.5% lower than that of a barrel without wear.