Investigation on the Ballistic Performance of Alumina/4340 Steel Laminated Composite Armor Against 7.62 Mm Armor Piercing Projectiles

Abstract

Laminated composites, containing a ceramic front layer and a metal backing layer, provide better ballistic protection against ballistic threats compared to armor steels. This study presents the influence of the mechanical properties of the backing plate and the areal density on the ballistic performance of the laminated composite. For this aim, three different heat treatments were applied to the steel specimens to get different hardness levels of 40, 50 and 60 HRC. Therefore, three composite specimen groups were prepared according to the mechanical properties of the steel plate. In addition to that each composite specimen group with five different thicknesses was prepared to get five areal densities. After that, the ballistic experiments were carried out against 7.62 mm armor piercing (AP) projectiles in a ballistic laboratory. Composite targets were subjected to a single shot for every specimen and all tests were repeated five times. Experimental results pointed out that, when the hardness of the 4340 steel was increased, the ballistic performance of the composites was decreased. © METAL 2008.