Investigation into the ballistic characterization of polyurea-coated spliced-shaped multilayer ceramic plates

Abstract

As a new protective structure, composite ceramic structures have become a research focus and new breakthrough direction. We using a ballistic gun to fire a 12.7 mm bullet at a speed of 500 m/s to penetrate the polyurea-coated spliced-shaped multilayer ceramic plates. The energy absorption effects of the polyurea and ceramic on fracture were analyzed. The ceramic fracture microstructure was subsequently investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the fracture principle was elucidated. The residual velocity of the projectile was predicted from energy dissipation. In addition, the failure process of polyurea/ceramic composite plates was explained in detail using numerical simulations, and the ballistic limit of different configuration composite plates was explored through theoretical and numerical simulation methods. This research showed that polyurea could effectively improve the ballistic limit of composite structures and increase its ballistic limit from 133.9 to 174 m/s, resulting in an increase of ∼30.4 %. However, polyurea had little effect on the ballistic performance of the structure under the condition of equal area density. The energy absorption process of five structures was mainly divided into four stages, and the coating of polyurea could effectively improve the energy absorption of ceramics, reaching 253.84 %.