Investigation of New Materials and Methods of Construction of Personnel Armor

摘要

There has been a considerable amount of research done over the years on personnel and vehicle armor. However, much of this work has focused on finding materials that were very strong to resist penetration of objects moving at high velocity. It is proposed here to study new armor concepts that are constructed using fundamental shock physics methods. The goal of this research is to develop materials concepts through an understanding of shock physics that will lead to new armor concepts for personnel, or for vehicles. It is envisioned that initial concepts will be developed from theoretical arguments, but with the aid of computational tools, such as hydrocodes. Our approach is to define materials theoretically that have desirable properties, and put these materials together into a computer model. It is also envisioned that at a minimum a four-layered approach is required. Currently, our concept is composed of an initial high impedance layer, which will serve to minimize the shock transmitted from an incoming blast wave. Additional layers are then optimized to stop projectile penetration. The second layer is envisioned to be able to quickly spread the energy from impact laterally coupled with a slow through thickness sound speed for slowing down the shock wave. The third layer is then used to absorb energy much more effectively and transform kinetic energy into heat. If a fragment is still able to penetrate through layers 1, 2 and 3, it is essential to have a fourth layer with very high strength to provide a final attempt at stopping any penetrator.