Materials and Design 46 (2013) 634–639

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Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Design and characteristics of hybrid composite armor subjected to projectile impact

Qun Wang, Zhaohai Chen, Zhaofeng Chen ⇑
College of Material Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Based on the understanding of material characteristics and interaction between projectile and target, an
Received 11 September 2012 innovative lightweight hybrid composite armor target consisting of alumina ceramics pellets, ultrahigh
Accepted 29 October 2012 molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and two layers of Ti–6Al–4V (TC4) was designed and pre-
Available online 10 November 2012
pared. The target areal density of the armor panel was 7.98 g/cm2. The standard size of the armor panel
was 150 mm  150 mm  28 mm. The penetration process of the armor subjected to the penetration of
Keywords: 12.7 mm armor piercing was investigated at the nominal velocity of 818 m/s. The energy absorbing
Armor
mechanism revealed that the innovated armor was able to protect against the projectile, together with
Failure analysis
Composites
weight saving.
Ceramic pellets Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction energy of the projectile by plastic deformation – in the case of a

The development of light armor materials systems, which
would have a significant improvement in penetration resistance,
impact energy dissipation, and damage containment, is of great
importance in the designing of protective armor against projectile
threats in structures such as helicopters, tanks and aircrafts [1,2].
An understanding of the fundamental dynamic response of the
material/structural geometry interaction is essential to the devel-
opment and assessment of new armor systems. Ceramic materials
have been applied in armor systems for several decades due to its
low density, high hardness and compressive strength. When an
armor-piercing projectile impacts a ceramic tile, the nose of the
projectile is shattered or blunted, thus reducing its mass and
energy. Unfortunately, their brittle behavior and poor tensile
strength cause failure and prevent them from absorbing any signif-
icant amount of energy. However by supporting the ceramic facing
with a ductile back-up plate, the performance of the armor is
dramatically increased. For instance, a single 11.4 mm thick tile
of AD-85 alumina has a ballistic limit velocity of only 390 m/s.
The ballistic limit velocity of an armor faced with 6.35 mm
AD-85 alumina supported by 6.35 mm aluminum, which has the
same areal density, is 650 m/s when ímpacted by an identical
projectile [3].
Generally, ceramic armor systems consist of a front monolithic
ceramic plate and metal or high tensile strength fibers, such as ara-
mid, UHMWPE or PBO. Upon ballistic impact (with projectile
velocity > 700–800 m/s), the hard ceramic body used is cracked
and broken, and the backing plate absorbs the remaining kinetic
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 25 52112909; fax: +86 25 52112626.
E-mail addresses: zhaofeng_chen@yeah.net, czf_msc@nuaa.edu.cn (Z. Chen).
metal alloy, or by elastic deformation and damage – in the case
of a fiber reinforced composite. Meanwhile, the backing material
must also support the post-impact fracturing of the ceramic body
[4]. When the ceramic facing is used as a single layer covering
the whole back plate, the ballistic efficiency is higher due to the
greater lateral confinement of the impact area. But, the damage
caused by projectile may extend over the whole ceramic surface
whereas with small tiles, this damage affects only the adjacent tiles
[5]. However, the backing plate deformation processes absorbs ma-
jor portion of the energy about 20–40% of the projectile, while an
insignificant amount (0.2%) is absorbed by the fracture process
of the ceramic plate. As reported by den Reijer [6], a premature
fragmentation of the ceramic tile reduces its erosive capacity and
consequently the ballistic efficiency of the armor. The rest of the
kinetic energy is spent to deform the projectile (10–15%) and a vast
amount is taken by the ejected ceramic debris [7,8]. Based on the
understanding for the materials characteristic and projectile
resistant mechanism, Grujicic et al. [14] detailly describe material
selection guidelines and strategies for transparent armor systems.
They designed the armor consisting of Strike-face layer, intermedi-
ate layer, and backing layer. AlON and Spinel, PMMA and glass, PC
and PU are optimal materials for transparent armor three layers
applications.
In this paper, the new lightweight armor consists of four func-
tional layers. The facing layer was built by close-packed arrange-
ments of ceramic pellets which provide feasibility for flexible
armor manufacturing and mending. The other three layers were
intermediate-1 layer made by TC4, intermediate-2 layer made by
UHMWPE and backing layer made by TC4, which can reduce the
damage of a target by dispersing the impact stress and dissipating
the impact energy effectively. Meanwhile, penetration process of

0261-3069/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2012.10.052
 Q. Wang et al. / Materials and Design 46 (2013) 634–639 635

the armor subjected to the penetration of 12.7 mm armor piercing

(AP) was investigated at the nominal velocity of 818 m/s. Based on
the experimental results, the failure mechanism of the target con-
figurations has been discussed.

2. Conceptual design

The main requirements of materials involved in armor design

are: low density to reduce the total weight of the armor system;
high shear modulus to prevent large deformations; high yielding
stress to preserve the armor resistance to failure; and high
dynamic tensile stress to avoid material rupture when tensile
waves appear [9]. As mentioned earlier, newer armor systems gen-
erally consist of four distinct functional layers. The main functional
requirements placed on each of these layers can be summarized as
follows:

2.1. Strike-face layer

Fig. 1. Young’s modulus versus Vickers hardness plot used for strike-face layer
The strike-face layer is made from ceramics with high hardness material selection.
and mechanical properties in order to decelerate the bullet and to
dissipate its impact energy. As ceramics are inherently brittle, their
inner constituents show extensive cracks after receiving an impact Table 1
from a first projectile at high velocity. Such damage weakens the Al–7017 and TC4 mechanical properties.
armor panel, and so has adverse effect on penetration of a follow-
Al–7017 TC4
ing projectile, impacting within a few centimeters of the first. A fair
Density (kg/m3) 2900 4400
example of armor systems is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,972,819
Elastic modulus (GPa) 70 110
[10], disclosing a ceramic body for deployment in a composite Fracture toughness (MPa m1/2) 25 86
armor, the body being substantially cylindrical in shape. The hard Bending strength (MPa) 310 993
ceramic pellets provide a multiplicity of surfaces to the structure
and thus a multiplicity of crack initiation sites. Due to the cylindri-
cal shape of ceramic pellets, the initiated cracks cannot propagate
too far within these cylinders, i.e. these cylinders significantly
improve energy dissipation upon the ballistic impact. The
projectile is thus always facing new surfaces of the hard material.
Different ceramics are used as armor materials; such as Al2O3,
B4C, SiC, Si3N4, AlN and some others [11,12]. However, alumina
ceramics are relatively inexpensive among these selected ceramic
materials and mechanical properties (hardness, strength, etc.) of
alumina ceramics with different Al2O3 contents are greatly differ-
ent. For a successful projectile defeat, Krell and Strassburger [13]
found that high stiffness (as measured by Young’s modulus) and
high hardness of the strike-face material becomes a critical
requirement in the dwell phase and the penetration phase, respec-
tively. The corresponding Young’s modulus versus the associated
hardness of five common alumina ceramic materials selection
chart is depicted in Fig. 1. It is clear that AL99.7 is the best choice
here.

2.2. Intermediate-1 layer
In this layer, since the projectile has already been slowed down
(and consequently, fragment accelerations are lower), the effect of
its erosion becomes secondary to the energy-absorption accompa-
nying fracture of the resistance layer material [14]. Therefore, good
fracture toughness appears to be the key functional requirement
for the material to be used in this layer. Most metallic materials
possess good bending strength and fracture toughness. Not only
do they provide stiff backing support to the strike-face layer, but
also they are able to extend the time of projectile and ceramic
interaction to slow down the projectile more. Al–7017 and TC4
are the common lightweight armor metal to be used. Through
Table 1, it found that the fracture toughness and bending strength
of TC4 is thrice more than aluminum. It is clear that TC4 is the best
choice here.
Fig. 2. Tensile strength versus density plot used for rebound layer material
selection.
2.3. Intermediate-2 layer
The intermediate-2 layer was not expected to play a major role
in defeating the projectile but rather in the containment of the
intermediate-1 layer. So, this layer required high bending strength
and bending recovery to increase resistance of the former layer. To
achieve a high bending stiffness of this material, a combination of
high tensile strength and a larger layer thickness, as compared to
intermediate-1 and backing layers, is an important functional
requirement. Furthermore, in order to reduce overall armor weight
and attain good ballistic mass-efficiency, the density of the inter-
mediate-2 layer constituent material is of major concern too. Fiber
636 Q. Wang et al. / Materials and Design 46 (2013) 634–639
(a) Initiation stage
Fig. 3. The proposed progress of projectile impacting developed armor.
Fig. 4a. Ceramic pellets arranged with dense pile structure.
Fig. 4b. Cross-sectional view of cylindrical ceramic body.
reinforced composites are frequently used due to their low density
and high strength and strain energy to failure [15]. With reference
to Fig. 2, it can be seen that, from the standpoint of providing a
light-weight solution, UHMWPE is the optimal material for armor
intermediate-2 layer applications.
2.4. Backing layer
The backing layer should support the intermediate-2 layer to
avoid surpassing its bending strength under the projectile impact-
ing. Since this layer should be in deformation correspondence with
the intermediate-2 layer, the most important property of the mate-
rial to be used in this layer is its in-plane and through-the-thick-
ness ductility [12]. While low density is still desirable, this
property is of lower importance in this case due to a relatively
low overall thickness of this layer. From Table 1, it can be seen that
TC4 is still the optimal material for armor backing layer applica-
tions to provide a light-weight solution for intermediate-2 layer
containment.
(b) Impact stage (c) Recovery stage
It is strongly believed that reasonable energy absorption could
be achieved with synergistic effect of every functional layer.
Fig. 3 shows the stages of projectile impacting a developed armor.
During impact stage, projectile contacts strike-face layer and
becomes eroded. Meanwhile, the strike-face decelerates the pro-
jectile. The impact energy is greatly absorbed in this layer. The sub-
sequent layers deform correspondingly. The intermediate-2 layer
produces high bending recovery at the recovery stage, which pro-
duces reaction force to increase resistance towards projectile pen-
etration. Finally, the projectile is brought to a halt.
2.5. Additional remarks
As a concerned point regarding the design of hybrid composite
armor, the adhesive plays an important role in the overall ballistic
protection resistance of the hybrid armor. Grujicic et al. [19] dis-
covered that while significant improvements in the ballistic pro-
tection performance and durability of hybrid armor can be
attained by proper modifications in the adhesive layer mechanical
properties. Since structural thermoset-polymer-based adhesives
suffer from inadequate ductility, only the case of flexible (elasto-
mer-based) adhesives was considered. Since the ceramic pellets
do not like ceramic tiles, ceramic tile enables its back face deflec-
tion accompanied by back face tensile stresses and cracking, so
elastomeric adhesives like organic silicon 704 could be used be-
tween each layer.
3. Experimental procedure
3.1. Composite preparation
As mentioned earlier, the target consisted of four layers. The
first was a ceramic facing layer arranged with dense pile structure
embedded in liquid sulfur rubber (LSR) at room temperature. Cera-
mic pellets were designated AL99.7 (AL99.7 is 99.7% purity alu-
mina), with D/R ratio of about 1.18. Preferred embodiments of
the D/R ratio is between about 0.85:1 and 1.28:1 [10]. Figs. 4a
and 4b represent the ceramic pellets array structure and a cross-
sectional view of ceramic cylindrical body, respectively. The other
three layers were TC4, UHMWPE and TC4 in order, respectively. Or-
ganic silicon 704 was used as adhesive between adjacent layers.
Fig. 5 shows the integral structure of the four layers. The integral
structure size of the target was 150 mm  150 mm. The areal den-
sity of integral structure was 7.9 g/cm2.
3.2. Impact
The hardened steel core bullet was covered with a copper
sheath and had a diameter of 10.8 mm, length of the core being
 Q. Wang et al. / Materials and Design 46 (2013) 634–639
Strike-face layer
Intermediate-1 layer
Intermediate-2 layer
Backing layer
Fig. 5. Photograph of ceramic facing layer bonded to other three layers.
Fig. 6. Photographs of (a) original bullet and (b) core of 12.7 mm AP projectile.
52 mm and weighed 30 g. Fig. 6 shows macrographs of the original
bullet and the core of the 12.7 mm projectile. The weight of the
shot (core + copper sheath) was about 48 g. The hardness of the
projectile at the tip was about 900 VPN. The projectile was fired
at a nominal speed of 820 m/s and its velocity had a little change
of 8 m/s for every impact experiment within experimental Error
in the MIL-STD-662F norm [23]. The ballistic deformation of the
back surface of the armor test target shall not exceed 44 mm
according to the MIL-PRF-46103E norm [24]. The property of the
target was investigated in one shot for the integral structure size,
but it can present the situation of multi-hit in greater areal. In or-
der to study the failure mechanism of the target, the measure-
ments of ballistic deformation needed to be taken after the
experiment.
4. Experimental results and discussion
The result of penetration experiments of the shot is presented in
Table 2. The typical experimental results are shown in Figs. 7–10. It
Table 2
Results of penetration experiments of projectile.
Velocity Damage of first layer Damage of second layer
818 m/s Single ceramic pellets broken No penetration, cracks, Bulge 25 mm
637
Fig. 7. The failure mode of (a) front and (b) rear surfaces of strike-face layer.
(a) (b)
Crack
Fig. 8. The failure mode of intermediate-1 layer (a) for front surface and (b) for rear
surface.
(a) (b)
Fig. 9. The failure mode of intermediate-2 layer (a) for front surface and (b) for rear
surface.
is evident that there was only one crater on the top surface and the
integral structure was nearly intact, as shown in Fig. 7a and b. Fig. 7
shows the ceramic pellets were still ‘glued’ together after the im-
pact. Thus, the projectile is always facing new surfaces of the hard
material. The erosion of the projectile against the surfaces of the
ceramic cylinder greatly limited the capacity of this projectile to
further penetrate within the armor. Based on experimental find-
ings [20], it is noted that sharpened impactors are less effective
in perforating the ceramic target. The penetration mechanism of
piercing process t is characterized by lateral displacement of cera-
mic material in the case of armor piercing bullets. The harder the
material, the more resistant it is to lateral displacement. AL99.7
ceramic owns high hardness among alumina ceramics. Thus, when
the pushing-aside mechanism of penetration occurs, the resistance
to penetration increases with increasing hardness of alumina
ceramics. Besides projectile mass erosion on hard ceramic facing
material, the projectile direction had changed by deflecting on
the cylinder ceramic pellets, which also reduce the amount of ki-
netic energy for the armor. The Fragmented ceramic cylinder also
Damage of third layer Damage of fourth layer
No penetration, No cracks, Bulge 3 mm No penetration, No cracks, Bulge 25 mm
638 Q. Wang et al. / Materials and Design 46 (2013) 634–639
Fig. 10. The failure mode of backing layer (a) for front surface and (b) for rear
surface.
had a high level of abrasiveness that additionally destroyed the
projectile during its penetration through the armor system. After
removing damaged area of ceramic pellets from the target, some
bulges and cracks were observed on the rear surface of the inter-
mediate-1 layer, as shown in Fig. 8a and b. There was no damage
on the top surface of TC4, except a miniature crack on the rear sur-
face of TC4, which was caused by the tensile stress on the bottom
surface. The tensile stress exceeded the failure stress [16]. It can be
seen that the strike-face layer prevented the penetration of projec-
tile effectively, and the progress of the penetration was probably
condensed in the first layer. Fig. 9 shows the failure mode of the
intermediate-2 layer. In the form of 0°/90° cross-plied oriented
structure, it could find obvious lamination and a few of fibers frac-
ture at the edge of UHMWPE. The plastic deformation of interme-
diate-1 pushed a strip of the first laminate toward the rear of the
laminate which induces shear cracks in the resin matrix parallel
to the fibers and applies a transverse load to the second laminate
[21]. This, in turn, causes separation between the first and two
laminate, i.e., delamination. After that, delamination process had
taken place successively through the entire thickness of the lami-
nate via the same mechanism. High energy-absorption capacity
of UHMWPE attributed to extensive stretching of the filaments,
which result in extensive areal bulging of UHMWPE back-face. By
taking measurement of UHMWPE deformation, it found that the
recovery layer bulged least, i.e. 3 mm as compared to 25 mm for
intermediate-1 layer and 25 mm for backing layer. This decrease
is associated with the elastic relaxation of the UHMWPE back-face
after the projectile was defeated and pushed back. Similar observa-
tion was made by Grujicic [22]. The experimentally result are in
reasonably good agreement with the work of Grujicic, which is
computationally predicted temporal evolutions of the back-face
bulge-height. When the whole structure deformed simultaneously,
fibers located in the back layers of UHMWPE failed in tension for
surpassing its ultimate strain. The fiber property of the intermedi-
ate-2 layer and metallic properties of intermediate-1 and backing
layers responded differently to deformation. The improved perfor-
mance of the proposed design was partly dependent on the inter-
mediate-2 layer. Besides protection against shock waves from the
facing layer, the intermediate-2 layer promoted the backing layer
structure capacity to plastic deformation. Fig. 10 shows the failure
mode for backing layer. The failure mode of TC4 plate in backing
layer was approximately the same as that of TC4 plate of resistance
layer. It is interesting that the second layer and fourth layer had the
same deformations of bulge, which indicate that the core layer
propagated stress wave effectively. However, deformation zone
was larger by measurement. The system consists of a hard compo-
nent with ceramic cylinders for destroying the projectile tip and
creating a greater surface area to contact between the facing layer
and the backing composite plate, which is for maximizing strength
and energy absorption. Actually, the other three layers except fac-
ing layer make up sandwich structure, namely TC4/UHMWPE/TC4.
The sandwich backing structure can reduce the damage of the tar-
get by dispersing the impact stress and dissipating the impact en-
ergy effectively. For shot 1, it could infer that when the penetration
began, the ejected ceramic fragments and craters were produced
on the top surface, and ceramic pellets pressed on the top surface
of the intermediate-1 layer. It was obviously evident that the cera-
mic facing layer stopped the projectile penetration, hence no cra-
ters were found on TC4 of intermediate-1 layer. Subsequently,
the other three layers exhibited synergy deformation under the
ceramic pellets extrusion, which produced bulges in each layer.
However, bending strength of UHMWPE was much higher than
TC4. When the tensile stress exceeded the strength of TC4, cracks
occurred in the TC4 plate of the second layer. After the shot, each
layer was still ‘‘glue’’ together. In such a target configuration, the
adhesive between ceramic and metal had a significant effect on
the ballistic performance [17,18].
5. Conclusion
In this paper, an innovative lightweight hybrid composite armor
has been developed to improve ballistic performance. The manu-
facturing process is explained in more detail; meanwhile, penetra-
tion process of the armor subjected to the penetration of 12.7 mm
armor-piercing (AP) was investigated at the nominal velocity of
818 m/s. Under high speed of the projectile, the composite armor
produced different damage characteristics for each armor compo-
nent layer. Combining the above results, the penetration process
of the target configuration by projectile was discussed. It was
shown that innovative lightweight hybrid composite armor can
be obtained utilizing properties of the armor components and their
features of fracturing under ballistic impacts.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank the National Basic Research Program
of China (973 Program).
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