Open Access

ARTICLE

Study of the Ballistic Impact Behavior of Protective Multi-Layer Composite Armor

Dongsheng Jia, Yingjie Xu^*, Liangdi Wang, Jihong Zhu, Weihong Zhang

State IJR Center of Aerospace Design and Additive Manufacturing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

* Corresponding Author: Yingjie Xu. Email:

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2024, 140(1), 171-199. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2024.046703

Received 11 October 2023; Accepted 09 January 2024; Issue published 16 April 2024

Abstract

The abalone shell, a composite material whose cross-section is composed of inorganic and organic layers, has high strength and toughness. Inspired by the abalone shell, several multi-layer composite plates with different layer sequences and thicknesses are studied as bullet-proof material in this paper. To investigate the ballistic performance of this multi-layer structure, the complete characterization model and related material parameters of large deformation, failure and fracture of Al₂O₃ ceramics and Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) are studied. Then, 3D finite element models of the proposed composite plates with different layer sequences and thicknesses impacted by a 12.7 mm armor-piercing incendiary (API) are built using Abaqus to predict failure. The simulation results show that the CFRP/Al₂O₃ ceramic/Ultrahigh Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE)/CFRP(1 mm/4 mm/4 mm/1 mm) composite is the optimized stack of layers. The simulation results under specified layer sequence and thickness have a reasonable correlation with the experimental results and reflect the failure and fracture of the multi-layer composite protective armor.

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Keywords

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