Abstract:

Functionally graded materials have been increasingly used in the design of impact resistant structures. A functionally graded plate with a tailored ceramic to metal through-thickness gradient combines the superior features of ceramics and metals in the same material system. The ceramic side provides good protection against projectiles, while the metal-rich side offers toughness and strength to maintain the integrity of the structure as long as possible. Thus, the ceramic plates are used for single impact applications, whereas the FGM can be used multiple impact applications with high ballistic performance. In this study the damage and deformation mechanisms of aluminum plates and functionally graded sandwich plates have been investigated and their performances were compared to each other under ballistics impact loadings. The functionally graded sandwich plate is composed of a mixture of ceramic (SiC) and metal (Al) phases, at a ratio of which is determined by a power-law distribution of the volume fraction. In the ballistics tests with 9 mm Parabellum projectiles, having a brass jacket and a lead core were used. Both aluminum and functionally graded sandwich plates were manufactured by means of the powder stacking-hot pressing method, their ballistic tests were performed and it was determined that functionally graded sandwich plates have a better ballistics performance than an aluminum plate by examining almost a full penetration of projectile to the aluminum plate while a significant penetration to the functionally graded sandwich plate was not observed. The authors would like to acknowledge funding from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under the research Grant No. 112M917.