How to simulate material erosion due to a high speed projectile impact in ABAQUS Explicit

MK 2020-01-31

I'm having problems to simulate the material erosion/failure after the impact of a projectile at high speed (2000 m/s).

In order to get more familiar with ABAQUS Explicit, I want to reproduce a simulation from the ABAQUS 6.10 documentation (Example Problems Manual, Volume I: Static and Dynamic Analyses, 2.1.4 ERODING PROJECTILE IMPACTING ERODING PLATE). In this example, a high speed, cylindrical projectile hits a plate (same material) at an initial speed of 2000 m/s and elements from both bodies fail and are removed from the material:

When I try to reproduce the simulation with a similar geometry and identical material properties, I get the following results:

The problem is, that in my simulation, no elements are being separated (no erosion of elements) but they all seem to stick together and are being extremely deformed/distorted.

Here's some general information about what I did and which settings I chose:

Geometry is the same as in the ABAQUS documentation example. In my case the projectile hits the plate perpendicular (20° in the documentation). 2 bodies, PLATE and PROJECTILE.
I copied the material properties. (import of the example .inp-file and then copy-paste of the material tables - in the ABAQUS user interface, not in a text program). These copied material properties include the following failure properties: Ductile damage, Damage evolution: Fracture energy = 500. Shear damage, Damage evolution: Fracture energy = 500.
Boundary condition: PLATE is pinned like in the example.
PROJECTILE has initial velocity of 2000 m/s like in the example.
I created two surfaces for both bodies, mesh type surfaces, including the interior of the bodies.
Interaction: General contact (explicit), contact domain: 4 surface pairs (projectile with plate, all with self, projectile with self, plate with self). I'm not sure, but I guess all with self and projectile with plate would suffice.

A similar high speed impact example can be found here: https://swym.3ds.com/#post:474 (Projectile Impact on a Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plate)

Could somebody please help me out or tell me what might be the problem why I am getting such huge element deformations and not the expected element erosion ?

Thanks !

Marc