Study of glass laminate configurations on ballistic resistance of novel lightweight sapphire transparent laminated structures

The transparent ceramic laminated structures are comprising of transparent ceramic, glass and PC laminates joined with the polymeric interlayer. Thickness and configuration of the intermediate layer, i.e. the glass layers, play a vital role in the dwell time of projectile and wave propagation response and optical properties of transparent laminates. In present study, ballistic tests are performed to investigate effects of glass configuration structure, e.g., the thickness of sode-lime glasses, the differences in intrinsic characteristics between the sode-lime glass and the borosilicate glass as well as the thickness of the first backing layer of borosilicate glass on ballistic resistance of the transparent sapphire laminated structures. For further clarify the ballistic resistance mechanism, penetration process and response of two transparent laminated structures with three or two borosilicate glass layers were incorporated in the numerical model, respectively, and analyzed using ABAQUS. As revealed by ballistic and optical tests, a novel lightened transparent sapphire laminated structure against 12.7 mm armor-piercing incendiary (API) with integration of good optical properties was fabricated, demonstrating the widely potential application in defense equipment. It was found that the sapphire/sode-lime glass/PC laminated structure exhibits better ballistic resistance than that of the sapphire/borosilicate glass/PC laminated structure. For two targets with equal thickness of glass layers, the thicker of the first backing glass exhibits higher ballistic resistance.