Light-Weight Ballistic Armor for Military Vehicles

The current conflict in Iraq has revealed a vulnerability of lightly armored military vehicles to attack and destruction by rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). Recent research under ONR sponsorship, led largely by investigators of this proposal, has already revealed that dramatic improvements in blast resistance can be made by exploiting periodic cellular metal sandwich panel concepts. Separately, concepts that integrate stochastic aluminum foams into armor systems have shown promising potential for improved ballistic resistance. The proposed program will focus on the development of sandwich panel technologies that integrate blast and ballistic protection into a single panel. Dynamic finite element simulations will be performed of the interactions between projectiles and the targeted metal/ceramic structures for the purpose of identifying the material combinations and topologies that exhibit the best potential for ballistic resistance. Several prototypical metal/ceramic sandwich structures will be fabricated, using existing manufacturing and bonding procedures. Initial ballistic testing of prototype panels will be conducted and compared against the predictions made by the models to establish fidelity. The objective of the activity is to develop cost-effective, lightweight armor systems, based on sandwich panel construction, for blast and ballistic loadings that could be used to protect existing military vehicles.