Static and dynamic behaviour of aluminium infiltrated ceramic foam at high volume fraction

Abstract

Ceramics are used in ballistic protection applications for their high hardness and compressive strength; however, they are brittle and shock-sensitive. Co-continuous ceramic composite (C4) infused with a ductile phase can compensate for the brittleness of the ceramic and increase energy absorption with a potential weight reduction in comparison with present multilayer armours. Nevertheless, the research on C4 for armour applications is in its infant stage. This article aims to investigate the energy absorption characteristics of C4 composites with ballistic grade Al5083 infiltrated into different volume fractions of SiC foam (10PPI, 20PPI and 30PPI). The infiltrated C4 samples have 13, 15 and 18 volume percent of SiC in 10PPI-C4, 20PPI-C4 and 30PPI-C4 respectively. The uniaxial compression test of C4 samples revealed that 30PPI-C4 samples have 135 times high compression strength than ceramic preforms and hardness of C4 also enhanced by 13% for 30PPI-C4 samples. The gas gun impact and Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) tests on the 30PPI-C4 specimens reveals that their specific energy absorption (SEA) are 78% and 30% higher than those of 10PPI-C4 and 20PPI-C4 respectively.