Investigation on the ballistic performance of metallic and laminated composite materials against 7.62 mm armour piercing projectiles

Ballistic performance of engineering materials should be known in selection of the mostsuitable armor material to protect civilian or military system with the lowest possible weightagainst various threats. In this study, various engineering materials such as steels (AISI 1050,AISI 4140 ve AISI 4340), aluminum alloys (AA 5083 and AA 7075) and laminatedcomposites were investigated experimentally. Steel specimens with the exception of AISI1050 were tested in four different heat treatment conditions (different mechanicalproperties), and AA 7075 was also tested in three different heat treatment conditions. Fourdifferent hardness values, namely 40, 50, 55, 60 HRC were tried to be acheived based onfour different heat treatment conditions for steel specimens. Three different heat treatmentcondition; Annealing (T0), aging (T651) and over aging (T7351) were applied to AA 7075.AISI 1050 and AA 5083 were tested directly in as received condition from the market.Moreover, mechanical properties of all tested materials were determined before the ballistictests. Then, in order to show the effect of thickness, five different areal densities were keptconstant and specimens were prepared in five different thicknesses. After that, all tests wererepeated five times and 525 experiments were completed in total. Furthermore, AISI 4340,which exhibited the best ballistic performance with the hardness of ~53 HRC, was testedwith ceramic tile as front material. Ballistic tests were performed with 7.62 mm APprojectiles at the polygons of Kırıkkale Silahsan Silah Fabrikası A.Ş. Projectile?s entranceand exit velocities were measured during the tests and in order to exhibit the factors affectingthe ballistic performance and failure mechanisms studies the successful and unsuccessfularmor specimens are investigated in macro and micro scale after ballistic tests.Key Words: Ballistic test, Armor piercing projectile, Armor materials.