Role of inertia in armour ceramics
conference paper
At TNO a series of alternative experimental test set-ups and diagnostic tools for the ballistic behaviour of ceramic materials has been developed. Use of these methods for different ceramics, ceramic thicknesses, different projectiles at different impact velocities also including a wide range of backing materials at different thicknesses, has highlighted the large role of inertia (mass) during the projectiletarget interaction process. All these experimental results can be well understood from an inertia point of view. This includes the widely accepted (increasing) order in ballistic efficiency of the most used armour ceramics when compared at equal areal density: Alumina, SiC, B4C. This role of inertia can also be derived from the early work (end sixties, early 70’s) on armour ceramics by M. Wilkins. TNO has generated an engineering model for ceramic based armour (ceramic strike face with/without a backing material). It quantifies the projectile-target interaction with quite accurate calculations of the mass loss and deceleration of the projectile during the interaction with ceramic, in a time-resolved manner. Based on the understanding of the large role of inertia on ceramic armour performance and using the engineering calculation model, TNO has identified new directions for the development of advanced armour ceramics.
TNO Identifier
952875
Source title
PASS2018 - 14th Personal Armour Systems Symposium 2018, Washington, DC, USA, 1-5 October 2018
Pages
483-493
Files
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