Mesoscale and Continuum Modeling of Ballistic Impact on s-2 glass/sc-15 Epoxy Composite Panels

Abstract

Recently, the authors developed two modeling approaches for composite materials that have been validated against a battery of plain-woven S-2 glass/SC-15 epoxy composite slow-rate mechanical test data. In one approach, a mesoscale mesh was created, and individual yarns, the surrounding matrix, and interfaces were represented using separate simple material models. For the other approach, rules of mixtures were used to relate stresses and strains at the fiber/matrix level to those averaged over the composite as a whole, which allows the composite to be represented by a continuum-level mesh. In this study, both models were used to simulate the ballistic impact of S-2 glass composite panels by two projectiles: a soft M80 ball round and a hard 0.50-cal fragment simulating projectile. Ballistic limits, residual velocities, backface deflections, and delamination areas from the simulations are compared to test data. The relative advantages and disadvantages of the two models are discussed with regard to both accuracy and computational runtime.