Paper Title
Ballistic Limit of Al-Sic Functionally Graded Armor Plates

Abstract
Against developing weapons technologies, protection armor systems are also making rapid progress. A good armor system should provide high ballistic protection and light weight at the same time. Also, the desired armor system should be able to resist against the multiple impacts. All these properties can be supplied by a metal-ceramic functional graded plate as the armor system. Namely, the ceramic constituent provides high ballistic resistance against projectile while the metal constituent supplies the structural integrity and multiple impact resistance of the functionally graded armor plates. In this study, the effect of material composition on the ballistic limits of Al-SiC functionally graded armor plates were investigated using explicit finite element method. The through-thickness material properties of the functionally graded plates were determined by Mori-Tanaka homogenization scheme. The ballistic limit velocities of metal-rich (n=0.1), linear (n=1.0) and ceramic-rich (n=10.0) Al-SiC functionally graded armor plates subjected to 0.30 caliber Fragment Simulating Projectile (FSP) were determined. Also, post-impact damage mechanisms of the functionally graded armor plates and projectiles were evaluated in detail. Index Terms— Functionally graded armor plate, Ballistic limit, Explicit finite element method.