PSI - Issue 71

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect

Procedia Structural Integrity 71 (2025) 158–163

5 th International Structural Integrity Conference & Exhibition (SICE 2024)

Keywords: Alumina, Fragment simulating projectile, ANSYS-LS DYNA ® , Ballistic limit. Numerical Investigation of Ballistic Performance of Alumina Against Fragment Simulating Projectiles Nikhil Andraskar a,* , Gaurav Tiwari a , Manmohan Dass Goel b a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur-440010, India. b Department of Applied Mechanics, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur-440010, India. This study investigated the ballistic performance of alumina 99.7 against fragment-simulating projectiles. The alumina ceramic tile was of dimension 100 × 100 mm with a thickness of 5 mm. The fragment-simulating projectile (FSP) was 5.54 mm in diameter and 6.35 mm in height. Numerical simulations were performed on the ANSYS-LSDYNA ® code. The fragmented projectile was made of Steel 4340. The behavior of alumina 99.7 ceramic is characterized using the Johnson-Holmquist (JH-2) material model which is a preferred model in analyzing the rate-dependent behavior of brittle materials and the Johnson-Cook material model was used to simulate the behavior of fragment-simulating projectile. The numerical model agreed with the experimental results provided in the literature and correctly predicted the residual velocity, projectile deformation, and failure of the alumina plate. © 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of SICE 2024 organizers 1. Introduction Ballistic impact research on alumina has concentrated on its application in armor systems, frequently in conjunction with other materials to boost protective qualities. A study conducted by Chi et al. (2013) introduces a semi-analytical method for assessing the effectiveness of alumina/aluminum armor when subjected to ballistic impacts, utilizing numerical simulations to confirm the model's accuracy against experimental data. Additionally, it offers an empirical equation for the ballistic limit velocity (BLV) derived from scaling rules, which is crucial for optimizing armor performance. The analysis performed by Kumar et al. (2020) is expanded to include ceramic-composite armors, such as alumina, and investigates designs that improve ballistic limit velocity (BLV) while reducing the areal density of the armor. The paper contrasts analytical predictions with experimental findings, highlighting that alumina with 99.9% purity achieves a higher BLV compared to the other ceramic materials examined. In the study by Chougale and Tiwari (2020), a numerical analysis evaluates the ballistic performance of alumina tiles supported by steel compared to those * Corresponding author. E-mail address: andraskarnikhil@gmail.com Abstract

2452-3216 © 2025 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of SICE 2024 organizers 10.1016/j.prostr.2025.08.022