Experiments and simulations of tungsten alloy rods penetrating into alumina ceramic/603 armor steel composite targets

The experiments and numerical simulations of tungsten alloy rods penetrating into alumina ceramic/603 armor steel composite target were conducted. Both the experiments and numerical simulations produced measurements of residual penetration depths in the steel back plates. The numerical simulations also showed damage distribution during the penetrating process. This study concludes that the residual penetration depth decreases linearly with increasing ceramic thickness. Therefore, both the mass efficiency factor and the differential efficiency factor increase with increasing ceramic thickness. The ceramic was seriously comminuted at the impact site and split into very small fragments whose sizes depend on the distance from the impact site. The ceramic targets without lateral constraint were more severely pulverized due to the tensile stress reflected from the lateral boundary.