Paper number 481

BALLISTIC [S1]PERFORMANCE OF MONOLITHIC CERAMIC BACKED BY S2-GLASS/ VINYL ESTER COMPOSITES

A. Haque, A. Abutalib, K. Rahul, U. K. Vaidya, H. Mahfuz and S. Jeelani

Center for Advanced Materials
Tuskegee University
Tuskegee, Alabama-36088, USA

Summary This paper investigates the high velocity impact response of an alumina ceramic tile bonded to a S2-glass/vinyl ester composite that is of interest in armor vehicle applications. The ballistic limit, residual velocity, energy dissipation and the penetration mechanism of various thicknesses of the two component composite system is compared. The thickness of both the ceramic tile and the backing plate is varied in order to obtain different areal density of the integral armor. An optimal thickness ratio and areal density for both the components is determined to obtain the maximum ballistic limit of this two-component system. The purpose of this optimization is to determine a ratio of ceramic-to-composite backing plate thickness which will provide a specified level of protection at minimum weight. The energy dissipation and the ballistic limit obtained experimentally is compared with an existing analytical model developed for a two component armor system. This model is originally developed for a ceramic bonded with metal structure and showed reasonable correlation with experimental results. In most of the cases the model is applied for cylindro-conical projectiles. This work investigates the validity of the model for fragment simulating projectile, in which case the impact surface of the projectile is flat rectangular shape with slanted edges. The extent of ballistic impact damage and penetration mechanisms are determined through ultrasonic C-scan and microscopic examinations. A numerical scheme is adopted to simulate the ballistic response of both the single and two component composite system using a three-dimensional (3-D) finite element analysis. Both the composite target plate and the projectile with boundary conditions similar to the impact tests are modeled using eight node-solid brick element. The target plates are impacted at different velocities and the displacement and the velocity component of the projectile as a function of time are analyzed and compared with the experimental results.
Keywords composite armor, ballistic impact, perforation mechanisms, optimization.

Theme : Mechanical and Physical Properties ; Dynamic, Impact and crashworthiness

[ HOME ]  [ BACK ]