Experimental and Modeling Study on Ballistic Impact Behavior of a Woven Carbon/Epoxy Composite

摘要

Textile composites are becoming more and more popular in armor application dueto their lightweight and excellent impact resistance properties. In this paper, weinvestigate the ballistic impact behavior of a plain-weave carbon/epoxy compositeexperimentally and numerically. The impact test is conducted using a gas gun systemwith a cylindrical projectile. The damage phenomena and impact tolerance of thecomposite plates are examined under various impact velocities (220~360 m/s). Ananalytical approach is developed based on energy equilibrium and information offracture pattern. It predicts the impact threshold velocity in a reasonable accuracy andthe profile of residual impact velocity after penetration. On the other hand, finiteelement model is developed to model the damage behavior of the composite plate. Theresults described the progressive failure process and predicted the fracture area in boththe front-side and backside of the composite panel. Overall, the presented analyticaland numerical models correlate well with the experimental results. They are useful forfurther investigation on the quantitatively analyzing the energy absorption and failuremechanisms.