Ballistic performance of the steel-aluminium metal laminate panel for armoured vehicle

Abstract

This paper presents the ballistic performance of the joining lightweight metal laminated panel consists of high strength steel and aluminium alloy for armoured vehicle application. Composite laminates trend in military industry present excellent performance in terms of lightweight material due to the improvement vehicle manoeuvrability, without sacrificing the performance and safety. The combination of aluminium plate and high strength steel offer the good potential for reducing the vehicle weight and improving the ballistic resistance. Ar500 and Al7075-T6 were chosen in designing laminated panel to achieve intended 20-30% weight reduction. Joining between these two materials have been investigated using both brazing method and adhesive bonding method. The adhesive bonding involved two types of material which is epoxy and polyurethane. Mechanical tests such as bending tests, drop weight tests and ballistic tests were performed to assess the strength of the laminated panel. Results showed that polyurethane bonded laminate panel through adhesion process exhibited 75% higher strength that that through the brazing process after performing impact test. Meanwhile, the penetration patterns found numerically are nearly similar to that from the ballistic tests and thus has validated the finite element models developed. The study on application of this laminated plate shall be extended using higher level of threat for hard armour vehicle panel.