Ballistic performance of ceramic/composite structures

The aim of this study is to investigate the ballistic behavior of ceramic/composite structures with different thicknesses and different reinforcements, numerically. The guns were shot at four different velocities on composite models using armor-piercing 7.62 M61 AP projectiles. The alumina ceramics forming the front surface of the composite structure were used in three different thicknesses. The fabric-reinforced epoxy composite is modeled to have six different compositions in total: aramid/epoxy, S2 glass/epoxy, carbon-aramid/epoxy, and hybrid aramid/S2 glass/epoxy with three different thickness ratios. ANSYS was used as preprocessor and LSDYNA was used as solver. Multilayer MAT 59 and MAT 22 models were used for composite materials while MAT 110 material model was used for alumina ceramic material. As a result, the numerical analysis revealed that the alumina/S2 glass/ epoxy composites show higher ballistic performance than the others in the data, based on the input-output velocity of the projectiles when the areal density of armors is not considered. Also, when all the ceramic thicknesses and areal density of armors are considered, it is found that the aramid/epoxy backing plate gives higher ballistic performance than the others