INTERACTION OF PROJECTILES AND COMPOSITE ARMOR. PART II

Abstract : This report describes basic experimental and theoretical investigations of the interaction of projectiles and lightweight armor. The armor of interest is a very hard and relatively inflexible facing plate (ceramic) bonded to a flexible backing plate (fiber glass or aluminum alloy). The theoretical work concerns: (1) development of an analytical model for describing the restraining mechanisms of the armor and for prediction of ballistic limits, (2) checkout and use of a simple computer code for obtaining stress fields in brittle facing plates and projectiles caused by impact at normal incidence. The experimental work concerns: (1) the use of high-speed photography and flash X-ray techniques for specific investigations such as observing fracture conoids in facing plates, (2) demonstrating that stresses in ceramic facing plates can be measured by manganin stress gages.