Investigation on the Damage Mode and Anti-penetration Performance of B4C/UHMWPE Composite Targets for Different Incident Velocities and Angles

Abstract

To found out the effects of incident velocity and incident angle on the damage mode and anti-penetration performance of ceramic composite targets, and provide a certain basis for optimizing the structural design of ceramic composite armor. The penetration of 7.62 mm bullet into oblique boron carbide (B4C)/UHMWPE composite target was investigated by ballistic testing and numerical simulation. The effects of incident velocity and incident angle on the fragmentation degree of bullet and ceramic panel were analyzed, also the damage mode of bullet penetrating ceramic composite target was developed preliminarily to estimate the anti-penetration performance of ceramic composite targets. Based on the testing and simulation results, it was found that the fragmentation degree of bullet and ceramic panel increases gradually with the increase of incident velocity and incident angle, but the fragmentation degree of bullet and ceramic panel decreases obviously when the incident velocity exceeds the ballistic limit; the damage mode of UHMWPE laminate is mainly tensile failure when the bullet’s incident velocity is lower than the ballistic limit, and the increase of incident velocity or incident angle makes UHMWPE laminate more prone to shear failure and delamination failure. With the increase of incident angle, the ballistic limit of B4C/UHMWPE composite target increases significantly, the deflection angle of bullet increases similarly, and the optimal thickness ratio of ceramic panel and backplate tends to decrease with the increase of incident angle.