The anti-explosion performance of ceramic/high-strength steel composite protective structures

Ceramic composite structures are important in developing lightweight protection applications. Designers primarily design for armor-piercing threats. However, it is difficult to avoid the threat of high explosives or improvised explosive devices on the battlefield. In this work, three ceramic composite structures with different type and thickness of the ceramic panel were assessed by explosion test and finite element modelling to study their damage and failure characteristics. The ceramic composite structures exhibit good wave weakening ability. The type of ceramic does not change the anti-explosion performance of the composite structure when the surface density is similar, but the two kinds of ceramics show different damage and fracture mechanisms. Specifically, intergranular fracture mainly occurs in the alumina ceramic, whereas transgranular fracture mainly occurs in the SiC ceramic. In all cases, the back plate made of high strength steel undergoes plastic deformation and the ceramic panel is fragmented in response to the explosive impact, and the size of ceramic fragments increases from the center to the boundary of the ceramic panel.