BALLISTIC IMPACT OF THIN-WALLED COMPOSITE STRUCTURES

Methods of analysis have been developed that provide the means to dete rmine whether a ballistic impactor of known shape, mass, and striking velocity will penetrate a given thin-walled composite material structu re and if it does, what the residual velocity of the impactor will be, The methods developed require performing penetration experiments at t wo striking velocities (with suitable replicates for statistical purpo ses) for any given composite structural target, From this minimum numb er of tests, one can predict the penetration, nonpenetration, and resi dual velocity of an impact at other striking velocities, This provides a dramatic reduction in the amount of expensive testing required to s tudy penetration due to ballistic impact, It also provides a less expe nsive and less time-consuming means to select the best material system and structural configuration to resist ballistic impact, Finally, it shows that the physics of ballistic impact and the penetration phenome na is modeled satisfactorily, These methods also accurately predict th e ballistic limit.