Impact studies of five ceramic materials and pyrex

Conference · Fri May 22 04:00:00 EDT 1998

OSTI ID:2862

Cunningham, B J ^[1]; Holt, A C; Hord, B L; Kusubov, A S; Reaugh, J E; Wilkins, M L

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1. LLNL

We measured the ballistic performance of five ceramic materials (alumina, silicon carbide, boron carbide, aluminum nitride, and titanium diboride) and Pyrex, when they are backed by thick steel plates. The projectile for all tests was a right-circular cylinder of tungsten sinter-alloy W2 with length 25.4 mm and diameter 6.35 mm, fired at velocities from 1.35 to 2.65 km/s. For this threat we determined the minimum areal density of each material that is needed to keep the projectile from penetrating the backup steel. For all of the facing materials studied here, this performance measure increases approximately linearly with projectile velocity. However, the rate of increase is significantly lower for aluminum nitride than for the other materials studied. Indeed, aluminum nitride is a poor performer at the lowest velocity tested, but is clearly the best at the highest velocity. Our computer simulations show the significant influence of the backing material on ceramic performance, manifested by a transition region extending two projectile diameters upstream from the material interface. Experiments with multiple material layers show that this influence also manifests itself through a significant dependence of ballistic performance on the ordering of the material

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 2862
• Report Number(s): UCRL-100717--Rev-1; DP0101022; DP0101022
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ALUMINIUM NITRIDES
ALUMINIUM OXIDES
BORON CARBIDES
CERAMICS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
IMPACT SHOCK
PROTECTIVE COATINGS
PYREX
SILICON CARBIDES
STEELS
TITANIUM BORIDES