Thick-section composites and sandwich structures have unique through-thickness damage mechanisms, making make them suitable candidates for energy absorbing composite armor. However, designing these structures for specific threats can be costly and time consuming. Traditional methods of designing ballistic structures consisted of testing. Although the results generated high confidence for the tested configuration, understanding how the armor would perform under different boundary conditions could be limited and would require additional testing. Analytical simulations of ballistic experiments can provide tremendous insight. A validated numerical model can be used to study the effect of armor designs as well as boundary conditions against ballistic threats. Explicit dynamic finite element code LS-DYNA, with composite damage model MAT_COMPOSITE_DMG_MSC, is used to study the ballistic performance and penetration mechanisms of thick-section composites and sandwich structures. The design of the sandwich structure is the same as the thick-section composite except for a honeycomb core added at the neutral axis.
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