Future combat systems necessarily focus on lightweight, highly mobile and t
ransportable armored vehicles. Lightweight composite integral armor systems
are being developed to meet these needs. The goal of this paper is to cent
rally document the myriad design requirements for composite integral armors
that serve multifunctional roles including ballistic, structural, shock, e
lectromagnetic, and fire protection. Structural and ballistic performance r
equirements as well as manufacturing and life-cycle performance issues of i
ntegral armor are presented. Specific areas addressed include high-strain-r
ate testing and modeling, ballistic testing and modeling, low-cycle fatigue
, damage tolerance, repair, reduced-step processing, through-thickness rein
forcement, energy dissipation and rate-dependent failure mechanisms, and no
n-linear mechanics.