Ballistic development of U.S. high density tungsten carbide ceramics

The United States and France, under a cooperative research project agreement are developing a new class of high density ceramics which inherently provide high space efficiency and reduced susceptibility to damage accumulation effects in thick sections. While many ceramics were considered, this research has focused on tungsten carbide based ceramics. The U.S. Army Research Laboratory, in cooperation with Cercom Inc. has developed a hot-pressed tungsten carbide ceramic for ballistic applications. This paper will present a survey of high density ceramics, document the mechanical and elastic properties of the U.S. WC ceramic and baseline the ballistic performance.