Armour penetration involves large strain, high strain-rate and high pressure. Modeling such phenomena with ceramics and composites, which are brittle and orthotropic materials, is complex. Material models such as the Johnson-Holmquist for ceramics and orthotropic damage for composites, developed for armour penetration simulation, require a large number of constants. Substantial experimental data involving high strain-rate and pressure is essential to accurately estimate these constants. Experiments are complex, time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, in this study, we have developed a simplified Johnson-Holmquist model for ceramics and an orthotropic maximum strain based model for composites as an aid to quickly design armour with bare minimum experiments. We have arrived at this model based on sensitivity studies on the material constants thereby identifying the primary parameters affecting armour penetration. We then validated this modeling approach with various ballistic impact experiments conducted in studies elsewhere. Thus, we have demonstrated a simplified method to simulate armour penetration using explicit dynamic finite element based ballistic impact modeling with minimum experiments.

Keywords: Ballistic impact, Material parameters, Sensitivity studies.