Study on impact protection properties of titanium alloy using modified SHPB

In order to evaluate the impact protection capacity of armor material quantitatively, direct impact testing loaded by modified Hopkinson bar was used to simulate the impaction between penetrator and armor. Protection coefficient k was defined to describe the protective performance. Using the direct impact testing, Ti-6Al-4V specimens with different microstructure and thickness were tested. Results show that k decreases with increased impact velocity and increases with increased thickness of specimen. Under a given loading condition, binary microstructure exhibits the highest k, indicating the best protective performance. Moreover, its k shows the most sensitivity to thickness (m_t) and the least sensitivity to impact energy (m_e), which means that its protective performance can be improved most efficiently by increasing its thickness and it will exhibit good protective performance in a wider impact velocity range. This new method can evaluate the impact protective properties of armor materials efficiently, which may have a broad application prospect.