<p>Ceramics constitute an important group of low-density armour materials. Their high intrinsic strength makes it possible to design ceramic armour systems capable of defeating projectiles directly on the ceramic surface. This capability, named interface defeat, signifies that the projectile material is forced to flow radially outwards on the surface of the ceramic without penetrating significantly.</p><p>This thesis presents impact experiments between long-rod projectiles and ceramic targets. The projectile/target interaction was studied using flash X-ray technique. Transition velocities (the impact velocity at which interface defeat can no longer be maintained and penetration starts) were estimated for different combinations of metallic projectiles and ceramic targets and compared to critical velocities estimated on a theoretical basis. Replica scaling experiments were also performed in order to investigate the possible influence of scale.</p><p>All ceramic materials tested showed a distinct transition from interface defeat to penetration. Experiments with different silicon carbides showed that the transition velocity correlated better with the fracture toughness than with the hardness of the ceramic materials. For conical projectiles, penetration occurred along a conical surface crack and at a lower transition velocity than that observed for cylindrical projectiles. Experiments with unconfined alumina targets in different scales showed only a slight increase in dimensionless final penetration with length scale.</p><p>A unique transition velocity seems to exist for each combination of projectile, target material and target configuration. This velocity was found to depend on both the strength (hardness) and the brittleness (fracture toughness) of the ceramic. The lower transition velocity of conical projectiles compared with cylindrical ones is mainly due to the radially expanding load and the penetration of projectile material into surface cracks. The results of the experiments in different scales indicate that replica scaling is valid for penetration in ceramics.</p>

Ceramics constitute an important group of low-density armour materials. Their high intrinsic strength makes it possible to design ceramic armour systems capable of defeating projectiles directly on the ceramic surface. This capability, named interface defeat, signifies that the projectile material is forced to flow radially outwards on the surface of the ceramic without penetrating significantly. This thesis presents impact experiments between long-rod projectiles and ceramic targets. The projectile/target interaction was studied using flash X-ray technique. Transition velocities (the impact velocity at which interface defeat can no longer be maintained and penetration starts) were estimated for different combinations of metallic projectiles and ceramic targets and compared to critical velocities estimated on a theoretical basis. Replica scaling experiments were also performed in order to investigate the possible influence of scale. All ceramic materials tested showed a distinct transition from interface defeat to penetration. Experiments with different silicon carbides showed that the transition velocity correlated better with the fracture toughness than with the hardness of the ceramic materials. For conical projectiles, penetration occurred along a conical surface crack and at a lower transition velocity than that observed for cylindrical projectiles. Experiments with unconfined alumina targets in different scales showed only a slight increase in dimensionless final penetration with length scale. A unique transition velocity seems to exist for each combination of projectile, target material and target configuration. This velocity was found to depend on both the strength (hardness) and the brittleness (fracture toughness) of the ceramic. The lower transition velocity of conical projectiles compared with cylindrical ones is mainly due to the radially expanding load and the penetration of projectile material into surface cracks. The results of the experiments in different scales indicate that replica scaling is valid for penetration in ceramics.

The purpose of this thesis is to gain understanding of the load on flat target surfaces produced by projectile impact. Models are proposed from which upper and lower bounds can be derived for the transition be-tween interface defeat and normal penetration. It is shown that the dominating contribution to the normal load is generally provided by the hydrodynamic pressure due to the effect of inertia. In addition it is shown that the contributions from yield strength and compressibility are also significant. For a cylindrical tungsten alloy projectile at an impact velocity representative of to-day’s ordnance velocities, the contributions to the load intensity on the axis of symmetry from yield strength and compressibility are shown to be 15% and 3.4%, respectively, of that of inertia. Impact tests have shown that for conical projectiles transition from interface defeat to penetration occurs at a significantly lower impact velocity than for cylindrical projectiles. In order to better understand the influence of projectile shape, a conical projectile in axi-symmetric impact is studied by use of an analytical model for self-similar flow, and the results obtained are compared to results of numerical simula-tions. It is shown how the maximum load intensity, and the position of the maximum, depends on the apex angle. For an apex angle of 90º, the maximum load intensity is found to be almost three times that pro-duced by a cylindrical projectile with the same impact velocity. This maximum occurs well off the axis of symmetry and is 20% larger than the load intensity at this axis. Both the self-similar model and the nu-merical simulations show that the contribution to the load intensity from compressibility is positive below and negative above an apex angle of around 80º. The contribution of yield strength to the load in-tensity at centre of impact depends only weakly on the apex angle and is therefore similar to that of a cylindrical projectile.