Advanced Materials for Composite Armour

Abstract

Composite integral armour plays an important role in future combat system. Despite numerous experimental studies there are still disadvantages such as complex manufacturing process, relatively big damage area, difficult to repair and limit shape etc. Composite integral armour without all these problems is essential for the success of future main battle tank which has a total weight of only 20 tons. 3D fabrics are seen as potential solution to poor impact damage tolerance of textile composites. Binder yarns in through-thickness direction can bridge cracks and stop crack tip growth resulting very good impact damage tolerance. The major purple of this work is to incorporate new materials and new configuration into composite integral armour. The underlying premise is that ballistic performance of new armour is judged mainly by single hit ballistic limit followed by damage resistance which in turn followed by energy absorption in high energy low velocity impact. Computer simulation of 3D textile composites and damage mechanism study were used through-out the study for analysing and explaining experimental results. Judged by these properties, conclusions regarding to ballistic performance of eight 3D texile composties were made. The benefit of the work will be a new explanation of composite armour research. This will help the success of future combat system.