Investigation of Advanced Personnel Armor Using Layered Construction
Abstract
A new method of constructing personnel armor is investigated. It comprises of a very hard 1st layer to deform and fracture the projectile, an orthotropic 2nd layer to slow down the shock wave propagation in the through-thickness direction, whilst allowing rapid propagation in the transverse directions, a 3rd porous layer to absorb the shock wave energy through PV-work, and a 4th layer to provide confinement for the porous medium. Based on the above armor protection concept, composite plates comprising of Alumina (Al2O3) Ceramic, Dyneema HB25 and porous Polyurethane (PU) foam were constructed to test against baseline armor AISI 4140 steel plate. A hypothetical orthotropic material model closely resembling that of Dyneema HB25 was derived based on fundamental materials engineering relations as well as limited available literature. Material models for the other materials used in this research were based on existing sources. A live firing experiment was conducted to validate this new composite armor against numerical simulations. Through this study, the composite armor has been shown both experimentally and numerically to be more effective in resisting penetration than conventional high strength armor of equivalent (and slightly greater) areal density, and that the material layering sequence is fundamentally correct.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA514421
Entities
People
- Ong C. Roy
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School