a b s t r a c tThe effect of rubber, Teflon and aluminum foam interlayer material on the ballistic performance of composite armor was investigated both experimentally and numerically. Although, rubber interlayer did not cause any significant delay in the initial stress build-up in the composite layer, Teflon and aluminum foam interlayer caused a significant delay and reduction in the magnitude of the stress transmitted to the composite backing plate. Damage in the ceramic layer was found to be highly localized around the projectile impact zone for the configuration without interlayer and rubber interlayer while aluminum foam and Teflon interlayer spread the damage zone in the radial direction. Relatively large pieces of the ceramic around the impact axis in the rubber interlayer configuration were observed while the ceramic layer was efficiently fragmented in aluminum foam and Teflon interlayer configuration.

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The damage formation in a multilayered armor system without and with an interlayer (rubber, Teflon, and aluminum foam) between the front face ceramic layer and the composite backing plate were investigated experimentally and numerically. The projectile impact tests were performed in a low-velocity projectile impact test system and the numerical studies were implemented using the nonlinear finite element code LS-DYNA. The results of numerical simulations showed that the stress wave transmission to the composite backing plate decreased significantly in Teflon and foam interlayer armor configurations. Similar to without interlayer configuration, the rubber interlayer configuration led to the passage of relatively high stress waves to the composite backing plate. This was mainly attributed to the increased rubber interlayer impedance during the impact event. The numerical results of reduced stress wave transmission to the backing plate and the increased damage formation in the ceramic front face layer with the use of Teflon and foam interlayer was further confirmed experimentally.

Quasi-static (∼10−3 s−1) and high strain rate (∼850 s−1) compression behavior of an E-glass/polyester composite was determined in the through-thickness and in-plane directions. In both directions, modulus and failure strength increased with increasing strain rate. Higher strain rate sensitivity for both elastic modulus and failure strength was observed in the inplane direction. A numerical model was developed to investigate the compressive deformation and fracture of an E-glass/polyester composite. Excellent agreement was demonstrated for the case of high strain rate loading. Also, the fracture geometries were successfully predicted with the numerical model.