NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF CERAMIC/STEEL COMPOSITE FOR STRUCTURAL APPLICATIONS

The Terminal ballistics is the study of science that deals with the interaction involved in two impacting bodies. This research focused on the high-impact resistance of layered composite comprising of alumina ceramic and armour steel. The composite was designed to have ceramic as the facial plate with armour steel as its backing plate. For the numerical study, the ceramic thickness was varied (6, 8, 10, 12 mm) while keeping the thickness of backing steel constant (7 mm). The projectile, 7.62 mm armour-piercing (AP), was set with a velocity of 838 m/s and made to impact the different ceramic–steel composite target configurations at zero obliquity. The study captured fracture processes of the ceramic, the deformation of projectile, and backing steel. An effective optimum thickness ratio of 1.4 (ceramic:steel; 10/7) for the ceramic/steel components with less deformation of the backing steel is found. Thereafter, the result of the numerical study was validated by experimental ballistic investigation of the determined optimum ceramic/steel ratio. The experiment corroborated the simulation results as the alumina ceramic provided efficient protection to armour steel component after a severe interaction with the impacting projectile.