Investigating the effect of ceramic-polyurea-aluminum layers on ballistic performance of composite target

Abstract

In this research, the ballistic performance of ceramic-polyurea-aluminum composite targets under the impact of flat-nose projectile was investigated for different thicknesses. The relevant experiments were designed based on the thickness of the layers and the effect of their configuration was explored. Experimental tests were carried out using two types of gas gun devices with different calibers. Residual velocity of the projectile was extracted using ls-dyna software for all targets and compared with the experimental data and after validation, the ballistic limit velocity was extracted. Taguchi method was used to design experiments and optimization and ballistic limit velocity, surface density, and strength-to-weight ratio were considered as objective functions. Moreover, the residual velocity of the projectile, damage mechanism of layers, the diameter of the hole at the back layer, central displacement of the back layer, absorbed energy, and changes in the projectile velocity were also investigated. Based on the numerical results, ceramic had the greatest effect on reducing the velocity of the projectile (approximately between 55 and 65%). Strength-to-weight ratio and armor weight were considered as two objective functions in the optimization. The effect of each of the armor materials on the target functions was investigated. According to the results, ceramic had the greatest effect on increasing the strength-to-weight ratio (about 83.88%), and polyurea had the least effect (about 14.09%) on increasing the total weight of the armor.