Research Information System
Fibers and Polymers, 2025 (SCI-Expanded)
Ceramic-faced ballistic armors have garnered significant utilization within the defense industry owing to their remarkable protective capabilities. However, a prominent issue encountered with these armors relates to the vulnerability of their ceramic front face due to direct contact with each other. Not only results in the fracturing of the initial impact zone, but also induces consequential harm to the surrounding material. Considering this challenge, an extensive review of existing literature was meticulously conducted to explore potential strategies for mitigating such damage. Drawing inspiration from the remarkable armor-like skin structure observed in armadillos, a novel design approach has been devised with the objective of enhancing the resilience of ceramic-faced ballistic armors. Additionally, the determination of the impact resistance of armor systems through experiments is very costly and time-consuming. Thus, this study focused on a cost-effective numerical and experimental analysis of a ceramic–steel armor system reinforced with carbon-epoxy composite wrapping. Ceramics were surrounded by carbon-epoxy composite material with different thicknesses (0.75, 1.0, and 1.5 mm) to reduce inter-ceramic contact damage. The results revealed that the composite wrapping around ceramics significantly reduced adjacent ceramic damage and improved energy absorption, structural integrity and overall ballistic performance. For unwrapped ceramics, all surrounding tiles were fractured with an average mass loss of 17.85%, while 1.0 mm composite wrapping limited the damage to only one ceramic, and 1.5 mm wrapping completely prevented adjacent ceramic fracture. Furthermore, steel plate deformation decreased by up to 1 mm, and the numerical predictions showed strong agreement with experimental findings.