Extended Investigation of the Dwell Effect for an Unconfined Silicon Carbide Ceramic Against Tungsten-Heavy-Alloy Rods

Abstract

This paper extends a recently published investigation on the dwell capability of single ceramic tiles of limited thickness for protection against tungsten-heavy-alloy (WHA) rod penetrators. Direct impact experiments with long WHA rods against unconfined SiC tiles supported by a steel backing were performed at impact velocities ranging from 1100 m/s to 1800 m/s. The ceramic tile was either bare or had a small buffer layer attached to the front. For the bare ceramic, the area density of the penetrated material Ï increases linearly with increasing impact velocity but at a reduced slope when compared to a semi-infinite RHA target. For the buffered ceramic, dwell is possible up to around 1700 m/s. Compared to the bare ceramic Ï is smaller and the buffered ceramic performs best regarding mass efficiency at an impact velocity of about 1600-1700 m/s before the performance drops sharply towards values in the range of the bare ceramic. Part of the work presented here has recently been published in a journal article [Behner et al., Int. J. Impact Eng. 95 (2016) 54-60].