Abstract: The mass abrasion of projectiles is an obvious phenomenon during the penetration into concrete targets, which will result in the mass loss and bunting nose. According to the experimental observation, the thermal melting and cutting by the aggregate on the surface of a projectile are the main mechanisms for the mass abrasion. In this paper, a coupled melting-cutting abrasion model is proposed combing with these two main abrasion mechanisms and the dynamic cavity expansion theory (CET). The mass loss of the projectile is obtained by the coupled abrasion model because of melting and cutting using the two-dimensional thermal conduct equation and modified Rabinowizc theory, respectively. The relationship between the two abrasion mechanisms is established based on the Johnson-Cook model. Then, the penetration performance parameters, such as the penetration depth, variation of projectile shape and mass loss rate, are obtained by the coupled abrasion model. The calculated results were compared with the experimental data. The comparison results show that the theoretical model prediction is in good agreement with the experimental data, which verifies the validity of the proposed coupled melting-cutting abrasion model. Finally, the evolution of the kinetic parameters and nose shape variation during the penetration are discussed. This work can provide some reference for the research of mass abrasion phenomena in the penetration process.