Steel spheres impact on alumina ceramic tiles: Experiments and finite element simulations

Abstract

AbstractFinite element simulations can be very useful for assessing and optimizing the design of advanced armor systems, but they require capturing the mechanisms of damage and failure that occur in composite‐backed ceramic tiles when subjected to shock impact. The damage that occurs, primarily by the formation of radial and conical cracks and comminution, is complex. Therefore, the first step toward understanding these mechanisms are to simplify the problem. In this work, impact experiments using spherical steel projectiles were conducted on free‐standing bare alumina ceramic tiles of two different thicknesses. Observations of the damage were then used to investigate the ability of numerical codes to capture the damage mechanisms occurring in the alumina tiles at various impact velocities. Three constitutive material models, used to simulate brittle fracture in isotropic solids, were explored, using commercially available finite element hydrocode LS‐DYNA. These were the popular Johnson‐Holmquist model 2 for ceramic materials, the pseudo‐rheological Karagozian & Case Concrete model—Release III, and the elastic bond‐based peridynamics model. The numerical results obtained demonstrated the capability of each approach to capture the damage produced by the impact of steel spheres on alumina ceramic tiles.