Experimental studies on high velocity impact on vehicle armoring
Résumé
Armoring of land vehicles or battlefield tanks needs to be improved to cope with new threats as IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) [1] and especially the resulted high velocity fragments. Additionally, the weight and cost reduction of armored protection can afford to optimize the fuel consumption, increase the payload and offer more maneuverability to vehicles. Existing armoring solutions are mainly based on structural steel or aluminum part coupled with up-armoring removable portions as ceramic tiles, steel or aluminum plates and composite material. However, protection performance of these armored solutions seems to be unsafe as related to several studies [2] [3] [4] [5]. To improve the level of protection against new threats, especially high velocity fragments, textile composite material can added on existing structural and up-armoring steel plates as a backing reinforcement solution. This study aims to compare the behavior and efficiency of different textile composite as backing solutions submitted at two different high velocities of FSP 20mm cylinder diameter fragment. Based on the kinetic energy model developed by Naik et al. [6] [7] and the different assumptions of wave propagation theory [8] [9] during high velocity impact, the proposed innovative textile solutions, mainly oriented on 3D warp interlock fabrics made with para-aramid yarns, tend to better spread the projectile kinetic energy absorption between the different parameters involved in the material and environment. Indeed, used as a backing, textile composite materials present some interesting properties such as a very low density compared with steel and good behavior in terms of ballistic efficiency. Different textile composite solutions have been designed, produced and tested at high velocities with FSP 20mm cylinder diameter fragment, and reveal a better impact behavior compared to existing laminated composite made with stacked 2D fabrics