Chapter 7

Impact on Ceramic Target

7.1 Overview
The unique low-density high strength properties of ceramics make them suitable for
weight-saving armouring system. The use ranges from military protection (see figure
7.1) for armoured vehicles and body-armours on soldiers to civil protection of aircraft
turbine, spacecraft modules and nuclear facilities at particular threat level. To harness
the maximum potential, the characterization, in-depth understanding of constitutive and
failure behaviour are a pre-requisite. Incidentally the experimental procedures, primarily
dealing with destructive testing at high strain rate, are expensive to have meaningful
data extraction. Recent trend tries to fuse the performance prediction through numerical
simulation with the test procedures (Krishnan et al., 2010) enhancing the cost efficiency
and understanding of material behaviour although the experimental design is unlikely to
be replaced completely.

(a) Armour vest with ceramic insert

(b) Add-on ceramic tiles on armoured

vehicle

Fig. 7.1 Application of ceramics in ballistic protection

In fact the design optimization of armouring assembly uses information exchange
among different approaches as shown in figure 7.2.
Under impact loading the ceramic material undergoes yielding in compression and
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Ceramic Target

Fig. 7.2 Methodology of add-on armour design optimisation (Glvez and Paradela,
2009)
eventually may be fractured, pulverized, and ejected depending on induced impulse intensity. Another interesting feature is tensile spalling near the opposite surface owing to
reflected tensile wave. These phenomenological characteristics can be studied with insightful observation if a suitable computational framework can accommodate the related
constitutive behaviour with reasonable accuracy. The pseudo-spring SPH framework is
explored in this regard in the following sections after adapting a established damage
model chosen from the varieties reported in literature.

7.2 Ceramic as an armouring material

Ceramics are one of the mostly used material other than metal and polymers in ballistic
shielding application. They can be crystalline or amorphous with inter-atomic bondings
ranging from purely ionic to totally covalent one (but not chemical bonding as in metals)
(Walley, 2010). Due to these type of bondings, ceramics exhibits hard, yet brittle behaviour without significant plastic deformation. Further, the micro-texture and packing
of grains get altered after different processing and treatments during manufacturing.

7.2.1 Armouring efficiency of ceramic

Some ceramics with high KIC (fracture toughness) values like zirconia do not exhibit
good ballistic performance. Also it has been observed in many ceramic systems that
the second phases and reinforcements which often increase the fracture toughness by
crack bridging and branching typically lead to poorer armour performance (Rice, 2000).
It appears that an optimum balance between the hardness and the fracture toughness
must be maintained. Even any further increase in thickness over the optimum range is
not necessarily beneficial. The better performing armour ceramics typically have high
Youngs Moduli and indentation hardnesses, moderate to low densities (at low porosity),
and moderate to fine grain sizes (Rice, 2000). The ceramic materials used for ballistic
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7.2 Ceramic as an armouring material

protection can be either monolithic structural ceramics or ceramic matrix composites.
Oxide ceramics like alumina (Al2 O3 ) in both single crystal and polycrystalline forms,
and non-oxide ceramics like silicon carbide (SiC), boron carbide (B4C) and titanium
diboride (TiB2 ) are the most commonly used monolithic structural ceramics.
TiB2 and SiC have reasonably high hardness values, but the hardest one is B4C. This
hardness is useful in eroding the projectile tip and hence is preferred with a high value.
Regarding the elastic moduli, TiB2 with E = 550GPa offers better resistance than SiC
and B4C. But the low reference density of B4C makes it able to have higher rate of
energy dissipation with higher sonic velocity. But ultimate failure is direct function of
fracture toughness and hence the fracture behaviour is found to be superior in case of
TiB2 followed by that of Al2 O3 , SiC and then B4C.

7.2.2 Relative comparison of ballistic performances

Ceramic materials under dynamic loading are generally characterised by wave profiles
from flyer plate tests, stress time plots from bar impact experiments and depth of penetration measurements (Lamberts et al., 2007). ODonnell (1992) performed impact tests
on SiC, B4C, Al2 O3 , and TiB2 tiles bonded to 2024-T351 aluminum alloy plates with
conical nose shaped steel projectiles. The surface area of the fragments generated was
computed. It was found that boron carbide had the maximum fragment surface area
while SiC had the least. TiB2 caused the greatest erosion ( 59% of initial projectile
mass) in the penetrator.
Regarding the relative thickness of layers/components in add-on armours with metallic backing, the thin backing experiences greater dishing action and subsequent bulging,
whereas the thicker backing demonstrates crater formation and ceramic ejection as shown
in figure 7.3. The communuted portion (crushed or pulverized ceramic but still with
residue load carrying capacity) or the cone angle of that zone in front facing ceramic
also changes for different mode of deformations.

(a) Thin Backing plate

(b) Thick Backing plate

Fig. 7.3 Schematic representation of wave propagation (Woodward et al., 1994)

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Ceramic Target

7.2.3 Micro-mechanics
Ceramics with strong ionic/covalent bonding, the microstructural parameters such as especially the grain size, shape, and orientation play a key role in determining its basic
mechanical properties like tensile and compressive strengths, hardness, toughness, and
wear properties. With similarity to Hall Petch relationship in metals, ceramic compressive strength and hardness is inversely proportional to the square root of the grain size.
The tensile or flexural strength vary in a similar trend (non-linear decrease in the tensile
strength with increasing grain size). Whereas the fracture toughness is a strong function
of bonding and microstructure. And in addition to grain size, it is influenced by grain
shape, presence of second phases, grain orientation, and porosity. At high loading rate,
failure fronts propagate at speeds approaching to sound speed (more precisely, Rayleigh
wave speed) in the medium and tune according to grain size. But for heavy projectile,
the dependency is not so clearly understood.
Ceramic manufacturing and processing include pressing, sintering, hot isostatic pressing with or without additives. Each of the processing steps can tap flaws potentially and
hence the structural behaviour of the finished product are sensitive to synthesis and fabrication techniques with large heterogeneity and less reliability. Because of low tensile

and fracture toughness (0.5 5MPa m), ceramics are used generally in front of armour
system to primarily absorb the initial kinetic energy from the projectile by carrying
compressive loads predominantly. The damage pattern observed under such loadings
include - extensively fractured but still interlocked debris with high micro-crack density (commonly known as comminuted or mescall zone) in high pressure-high shear
zone, frontal surface with visible macro radial cracks due to profuse dislocations, lateral
cracking owing to material spallation at backside from reflected tensile pulse. Studies
(Ashby and Hallam, 1986; Vekinis et al., 1991) have shown that micro-structural defects
such as pores, cracks, inclusion, inhomogeneities and stress concentration regions like
secondary phases and elasticity mismatch at grain boundaries, triple points and even
sub-grain features like twin, stacking faults may induce tensile micro-crack nucleation
under external loadings by transforming global compression into a population of local
tensile zones. But the effects of such defects distribution on dynamic failure behaviour
are not established well yet and needs more careful investigation. Confining effect inhibits the nucleation and propagation of those micro-flaws - increasing the materials
load carrying capacity, and even may cause the brittle material nominally yield due to
plasticity (Lankford, 1977) when high confinement effect is present in materials with
low flaw density.
Microplasticity is the failure mechanism for the finer grain sizes. But for the larger
grain sizes, where the flaw dimensions are comparable to or greater than the grain sizes,
the most anticipated failure mechanism is Griffith flaw failure.
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7.3 Ceramic material models

7.3 Ceramic material models

Sudden rupture after linear elastic deformation is the general failure mode for ceramics
under tension. Whereas, this changes to more gradual behaviour under compression, and
if under confinement, only loss in load carrying capacity is partial in place of complete
failure. Regarding estimation of damage state in ceramic materials, the broad group of
micromechanical models takes into account micro-cracks nucleation and growth under
multi-axial loading reproducing measurements obtained from impact experiments on
specimen reasonably well; whereas in the phenomenological models, an explicit function of time and effective stress is used to predict damage propagation, via calibrating
coefficients of the function with other measured quantities.

7.3.1 Microphysical models

Micro-mechanical models to capture loading rate dependent dynamic damage evolution are generally based on sliding crack model (Heard and Cline, 1980) through the
dependence of dynamic stress intensity factor on crack growth speed. However, the micromechanical models must assume randomly distributed initial cracks and their sizes,
and they are computationally very expensive, generally not applicable to large-scale
problems.
Taylor et al. (1986) proposed statistical evaluation of micro-crack distribution (TCK
model), where individual micro-crack growth is obtained via fracture mechanics theory. By using a scalar damage value for micro-crack distribution within the material,
the strain-rate-dependent inelastic behaviour was modelled when under tension. In this
TCK model gradual decrease in compressive strength with damage accumulation and
pressure, strain-rate dependency were not included.
The effect of the strain-rate and damage-dependent compressive strength were coupled with TCK model by Rajendran and Kroupa (1989) primarily for tensile dominant
damages under extremely high pressure (> 10 GPa). Rajendran and Grove (1996) further introduced micro-cracking and plasticity based another damage model for simulating shock wave tests output. But the difficult and exhaustive procedure of parameter
identification via trial-and-error simulations to match several test results limits the scope
and applicability of this model.

7.3.2 Phenomenological models

Though phenomenological models are often only applicable to the specific experiments
they were based on. The calibrated coefficients becoming invalid if any configuration
changes such as geometry and boundary conditions are made. For example, uniaxial
strain tests and uniaxial stress tests were dominantly used to calibrate these models.
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Ceramic Target
7.3.2.1 Simha model
Fahrenthold (1991) developed a continuum model based on the idea of complimentary
energy density that used a second-order tensor to represent anisotropic damage. Simha
et al. (2002) developed a damage model similar to Fahrentholds model, inferred from
bar and plate impact tests on AD 99.5 alumina. In their model, it was assumed that
ceramics comminute at the Hugoniot Elastic Limit (HEL) and yield strength of material
is weighted sum of intact and damaged strength.

y = intact (1 D) + f ailed D +

3
2

(7.1)

where f ailed = min( P, max) and = 0 e1 (PPHEL) .

0 , 1 , , max and PHEL are material parameters. The term controls the contribution of the effective deviatoric strain rate . This rate dependency is the phenomenological contribution of micro-crack sliding, dislocation activity and grain boundary sliding.
7.3.2.2 John-Holmquist models
Pressure-dependent strength, damage and fracture based on accumulated plastic strain,
significant strength reduction and bulking after fracture, and strain rate effects are incorporated in models developed by Johnson and his co-workers. The first version (Johnson
and Holmquist, 1992), JH-1 model, employs piecewise linear strength envelope with
sudden strength reduction and pressure increases due to bulking just when damage variable D reaches 1. Improvisation (JH-2) was made on this by using analytic smooth
function as the strength envelope to avoid sudden change in strength profile at juncture
of piecewise linear fits (Johnson and Holmquist, 1994). And gradual softening, bulking
due to incremental damage accumulation was employed here. But the actual behaviour
of brittle ceramics is perceived to be more realistically represented by sudden change
in strength after complete damage (D = 1), particularly in plate impact scenario and
demonstrating dwell-penetration transition (Simha et al., 2002). Hence Johnson et al.
(2003) introduced another variety (JHB) by keeping sudden change of strength as per
JH-1 but approximating the strength profile by smoothed analytic function as in JH-2.
Additionally phase-change and hysteresis during unloading were also incorporated. The
pressure estimation independent of internal energy (except bulking pressure), accumulation of damage and effect of strain rate were represented similarly in all three versions.
Pressure is computed by polynomial fit (similar to Hugoniot fit) equation of state
(EOS) with =

1 as,

K + K 2 + K 3 + P
2
3
1
P=
K
1

142

, if, > 1
, otherwise

(7.2)

7.3 Ceramic material models

If the prevalent strain-rate ( ) is more than the reference strain rate (0 ) at which
intact and damage strength (eq,0 ) parameters are obtained, the effect of strain-rate hardening is represented by,

 

eq = eq,0 1 +Cln
(7.3)
0
Damage (D) is perceived to be accumulating with the increments in effective plastic
ef f
strain ( pl ) as,
ef f

D=

pl

(7.4)

plf

where pl is the variable fracture strain computed differently in different versions.

Since present numerical investigation is based on JH model, distinct features of its
three versions are now discussed in brief in turn below.

7.3.2.3 JH-1 model

(a) Strength without Strain Rate Effects)

(b) Fracture Strain

Fig. 7.4 JH-1 model (Johnson and Holmquist, 1992)

The intact and fractured strengths (the Mises effective stresses eq,i and eq, f respectively) are estimated from current state of pressure as,

i,1 PP+T

1 T

i,2 i,1 )
eq,i = i,1 + (PP1P)(P
2
1

i,2

eq, f =

c f P

, T P < P1
,P1 P < P2
,P P2

,0 < P <

f ,max

,P

(7.5)

f ,max
cf

f ,max
cf

(7.6)

The fracture strength is employed only when D reaches 1 with growth law as per equa143

Ceramic Target
tion 7.4, where the fracture strain is estimated as,

plf =

P+T f

Pmax + T max

(7.7)

As evident from the figure 7.4, only input state variable in above equation is pressure
P, all other parameters being material constants determined from combinations of test
procedures.
After complete damage (D = 1), in addition to strength reduction, an increase in
terms of bulking (P) due to volume increase with increased free surfaces in damaged
ceramic is added to P. This pressure increment is determined from decrease in internal
2
ev
elastic energy (U = 6G
, ev and G being von-Mises effective stress and shear modulus
respectively) due to damage as,
P = K1 +

(K1 + P)2 + 2 f K1 U

(7.8)

where, U = Ui U f is the difference in internal elastic energy before and after damage
and f is the fraction (0 f 1) of the internal deviatoric energy loss converted to
potential hydrostatic energy.

7.3.2.4 JH-2 model

(a) Strength without Strain Rate Effects

(b) Bulking pressure

Fig. 7.5 JH-2 model (Johnson and Holmquist, 1994)

Here current strength at damage D is interpolated from intact and failed strengths as

eq = eq,i D(eq,i eq, f ) where each of the strength envelope is represented as,
eq,i = A
eq, f = B

P
PHEL
P
PHEL

T
PHEL

M

N

HEL

HEL

(7.9)
(7.10)

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7.3 Ceramic material models

Additional normalization constants PHEL and HEL are the pressure and stress at the
Hugoniot elastic limit (HEL). Once HEL is known for a particular material, HEL is
iteratively compueted from

HEL
4
2
3
HEL = K1 HEL + K2 HEL
+ K3 HEL
+ G
3 1 + HEL

(7.11)

2
3
and HEL = 23 (HEL PHEL )
+ K3 HEL
Then PHEL = K1 HEL + K2 HEL

The fracture strain here is computed as,

plf

= D1

P
PHEL

T
PHEL

D2

(0 D 1.0)

(7.12)

And similarly like gradual strength reduction, bulking pressure is added incrementally
as,
Pt+t = K1 t+t +

q
(K1 t+t + Pt )2 + 2 f K1 (U |D(t) U |D(t+t) )

(7.13)

7.3.2.5 JHB model

(a) Strength without Strain Rate Effects

(b) Fracture strain

Fig. 7.6 JHB model (Johnson et al., 2003)

In this model the intact and failure strengths are computed through the following
smooth function of pressure P,

eq,i =

i PP+T
i T

, T P Pi


(PPi )i

,P Pi
i + (i,max i ) 1 e (Pi+T )(i,max i )
145

(7.14)

Ceramic Target
and,

P P
f

eq, f =

"

(PP )
P ( f f )
f
f f ,max

f + ( f ,max f ) 1 e

,0 P Pf
,P Pf

(7.15)

The sudden application of bulking pressure is quantified similar to the procedure adopted
in JH-1 version (equation 7.8), and the fracture strain is estimated as,

plf

= D1

i,max

i,max

n

f
max

(7.16)

Now the additional features include incorporation of phase change and hysteresis
during unloading. At the second phase after threshold compressibility 2 , the pressure
is computed with modified coefficients of EOS as,
P = K 1 ( 0 ) + K 2 ( 0 )2 + K 3 ( 0 )3

(7.17)

whereas, a linear transition between Phase 1 and 2 is considered. If bulking is coupled

with phase change, the increment in pressure is estimated through interpolation as,
ef f ef f
P = K1 f

ef f

ef f

ef f

(K1 f )2 + 2 f K1 U

(7.18)

ef f
ef f
1
where, K1 = K1 (1 ) + K1 , and f = f 0 with = max
. The effects
2 1
of phase change and that of hysteresis during unloading is shown in the figure 7.7.

(a) Phase Change

(b) Hysteresis during unloading

Fig. 7.7 Pressure curve in JHB model (Johnson et al., 2003)

For the purpose of investigating the intended behaviour, Johnson et al. (2003) demonstrated the behaviour of a ceramic block under uni-axial compression and then release
as shown in figure 7.8. With few representative parameters, it was shown that after initial elastic build-up (segment 1-2), the ceramic undergoes yielding with intact strength
146

7.3 Ceramic material models

(segment 2-4). After sufficient accumulation of plastic strain and damage (D = 1), the
strength envelope is shifted suddenly to fractured strength (segment 5-7). Now the unloading starts and the material unload elastically (segment 7-8 with parallel slope of
segment 1-2). At point 8, the effective deviatoric stress passes through zero during
transition from compression to tension with pressure remaining compressive still - representating a pure hydro-static state of stress. After this, the tensile elastic unloading
of deviatoric stress happens until it reaches the failure envelope again (segment 8-9).
The strength envelope at this condition is dominated by the fractured state because of
earlier damage due to compression (segment 9-1) until it reaches the initial stress free
condition.

Fig. 7.8 Loading and unloading under uni-axial compression (Johnson et al., 2003)

7.3.3 Model selection

The ceramic behaviour is primarily dominated by pressure and strain-rate dependent behaviour under compression while being comparatively weak in tension (tensile pressure
capacity capped at T compressive capacity). Hence most damage models were de-

veloped with primary focus on this characteristics. But model parameter identification
being sensitive to reference test configurations, only uni-axial test scenario as in flyer
plate test or shock wave testing is not always preferable. Lankford (1977) tried the identification via multi-axial compression in split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) test but
with expensive features.
Now among the mostly used models with larger share of test data available in literature, Johnson-Holmquist models (JH-1, JH-2 and JHB) hold potential of a realistic
representation. Among them the JH-2 version employs gradual strength reduction with
increments in damage and hence is not chosen to represent sudden brittle behaviour
in the test cases to follow (flyer plate spall test, distal boundary effect in deep target
and conoid formation when backed by metallic plate). JHB version uses an improved
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Ceramic Target
analytic funtion in computing strength envelope compared to piecewise linear fits in
JH-1. But JHB model also requires additional material parameters due to considerations of phase change and hysteresis effects during unloading. As mentioned earlier,
identification of these parameters requires special attention and even may require tuning
to represent the actual real life behaviour. Avoiding those complexities, here the JH-1
version is chosen to represent the particular test cases considered.
The material considered in all test cases is Silicon Carbide (SiC with reference
density 0 = 3215kg/m3, elastic modulus E = 449GPa, Poissons ratio = 0.16 and
HEL= 11.6GPa), parameters for which are taken from (Holmquist and Johnson, 2002)
and reproduced in table 7.1
Table 7.1 JH-1 model parameters for silicon carbide (SiC) (Holmquist and Johnson,
2002)
Equation of State
K1 =220 GPa
K2 =361 GPa
K3 =0
f =1.0

Intact strength Failed Strength Tensile Strength

P1 =2.5 GPa
c f =0.40
T=0.75 GPa
i,1 =7.1 GPa
f ,max =1.3 GPa
P2 =10.0 Gpa
i,2 =12.2 GPa

Damage
Pmax =99.75 GPa
f ,max =1.2

7.4 Validation via flyer plate test

Spall failure owing to excessive tensile stress is an important phenomena to study Hugoniot elastic limit (HEL) and spall fracture criterion in ceramics. When one disc is impacted upon another target disc, a compressive stress front starts propagating in both
materials after emanating from the contact surface. Now generally, ceramics are strong
in compression compared to its tensile behaviour. If the stress wave magnitude (of the
order of Cl v p , with material density , mediums acoustic speed Cl and particle velocity v p ) does not exceed the compressive strength, the material wont experience fracture
though partial loss of strength may happen due to accumulated plastic strength (when
Cl v p > HEL).
Following the experimental design of flyer-plate test impedance matched (same material) plates with target thickness (2w) approximately double of the hitting plate (w),
the compressive fronts will travels towards free surfaces opposite to the impact faces.
They will reflect from the free surface as the rarefaction release waves. The hitting
plate will be completely traversed by the reflected tensile wave in (w + w)/Cl time just
when the compressive front reaches the free surface of the target plate. Now the tensile
front from the hitting plate will transmit in the target plate at the contact surface because
of impedance match, whereas the compressive front will reflect and starts propagating
towards the contact surface. So, these two release waves now comes at each other gradually releasing the compressed zone traversed by them in the target plate. If the radial
148

7.4 Validation via flyer plate test

boundary is sufficiently away from the middle of contact plane (keeping diameter to
thickness ratio sufficiently large), the reflection from radial boundary will not disturb
(see figure 7.9) this uni-axial propagation significantly.

Fig. 7.9 Wave propagation in flyer and plate due to the impact (Hiermaier, 2007)
Now, the two release front will meet at the middle of the target plate resulting in
amplification. Depending on the material and initial impulse this amplified release may
exceed the tensile strength. For most ceramics, the tensile limit is very less ( 1GPa).
Hence even at velocity 150-200 m/s, the ceramic target plate will demonstrate a distinct spall plane perpendicular to the wave motion. The remaining shock and rarefaction
waves are reflected from that new spall plane and subsequently travel back and forth
within the spalled out material (see figure 7.10, as zoomed). This type of failure is common in brittle materials with small tensile to compressive strength ratio and generally
under dynamic loading like impulse on rocks.

Fig. 7.10 Deformed configuration with spall plane in target

If measurements are taken for free surface velocity, it will show sharp jump just
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Ceramic Target
when the first compressive front reaches the free surface. The signal will then remain at
that amplitude (vmax ) when the first release wave travels towards spall zone. During the
spallation, there will be characteristic drop (vsp ) in the signal (see figure 7.11) until it
rises again as the reflected wave from spall plane reaches this free surface. From this
velocity pullback vsp , the spall stress is computed as 0.50Cl vsp . Though, to correct
for pre-deformation during pre-spall wave propagation corrections was suggested by
Stepanov (1976).

Particle Vel. (m/s)

150

100
Dandekar and Bartowski (ARL-TR-2430)
Holmquist and Johnson (JAP 02)
Quan et al (IJIE 06)
Simulation Output

50

0
0

0.5

1.5
2
Time (s)

2.5

3.5

Fig. 7.11 Free surface velocity measured for SiC with a flyer velocity of 148 m/s
The obtained spall signal (with average inter-particle spacing of 0.1955 mm) is compared with that of experiment by Dandekar and Bartkowski (2001), prescribed profile
by Holmquist and Johnson (2002) and the numerical counterpart via AUTODYN by
Quan et al. (2006) in figure 7.11. The pseudo-spring SPH version successfully produces
the conformal characteristic drop (vsp ) by adaptation of piecewise linear JH-1 model.
A point is to note that for the mollifying effect of the SPH parameter h (smoothing
length) and for the used artificial viscosity, the jump in the signal is bit smoothened over
a finite small time-scale as compared to that of experimental evidence.
Apart from that, the SPH framework as a collocation method uses information from
a finite sub-domain bounded by the kernel support (here 2h) and hence is bound to
yield a non-local effect. But brittle materials like ceramic is experimentally evidenced
to demonstrate very small fracture processing zone. A possible way-out is reducing the
h/p ratio (where p: average particle spacing) within the acceptable range of robust
computation.
This type of fine tuning was required in this particular simulation despite reduced
sensitivity of h when using gradient correction (see figure 3.5). But this tuning does not
opposes the claim of pseudo-spring version, that material strength/damage behaviour
would solely be represented by damage algorithm at pseudo-spring level, irrespective of
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7.4 Validation via flyer plate test

basic SPH framework. To prove that, with same parameters (p, h, artificial viscosity
parameters, t), the simulation was conducted with and without the particular JH-1
based damage algorithm at pseudo-springs.
The case without damage algorithm does not produces any particle-level instability
as the target plate just moves away from the impactor without any spall plane being
developed. Moreover the velocity signals (see figure 7.12) at impact face and at free
surface of the target show similar zig-zag patterns with same order of amplitude indicating no spalling. Although the obvious phase lag due to time required for the first
compression wave to reach respective points of measurements are present. Besides the
average amplitude of those signals do not reach that obtained via JH-1 based pseudospring framework.

Fig. 7.12 Velocity signal with and without pseudo-spring level damage
These observations imply that the classical SPH without any fracture algorithm can
capture the propagation of waves but can not simulate the failure behaviour even with
adaptive resolution. This proves once again the necessity of using explicit damage in
material-independent kernel based particle simulation. Although the tuning related to h
is believed to be replaceable with adjustment of the failure parameter as was identified
by Quan et al. (2006).
The minute difference between experimental and model output signal (figure 7.11)
is perceived to be due to difference of real-life test scenario and ideal surrounding of numerical test. Free-free condition is hard to achieve completely in real-life experiments
but easily modelled in numerical test environment. Air pressure resistance in front of
the moving plate may be another factor contributing. Further the attenuation of the spall
signal may also happen after ceramic micro-structure changes as the stress wave passes
through it. But this air-resistance or micro-structural changes are not included in the
present simulation regime. When incorporating the macro-level ceramic material model
(Johnson-Holmquist model is taken here), the definition of phase changes and consideration of hysteresis (as in Johnson-Holmquist-Biessel Model) may improve this close
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Ceramic Target
agreement. However that is subjected to availability of suitable material parameters for
SiC and otherwise more physically-based material model for ceramic.

7.5 Distal boundary effect

Whereas the last validation test case is related to uni-axial loading, multi-axial loading coupled with shear and dynamic fracturing via lateral and radial cracking is a far
more complex phenomena. Ceramics behave differently under tensile and compressive
loading subjected to kinetic energy projectile impact. Tensile spalling remains one of
the dominant mode in case of particular loading rate. Though under certain condition,
ceramic may even exhibit sudden and brittle failure mode in compression. Also, a transition may occur between brittle-to-ductile mode depending on the induces shear and
confinement effects as the shear capacity also increases with confinement. The precise
effects can be investigated with tri-axial compression test. Although, extensive uni-axial
experiments like bar and plate impact were done to understand high strain-rate behaviour
(Hiermaier, 2007), multi-axial test results are comparatively scarce.

(a) @ 5 s

(b) @ 8 s

(c) @ 10 s

(d) @ 20 s

Fig. 7.13 Discrete crack path in deep ceramic target

In general, the ceramics exhibit hydrostatic pressure dependent behaviour - preventing the inter-grain boundary slip. Here impact of deformable steel projectile (deforms
as per J-C model) on deep ceramic target is investigated to check discrete crack orientation. During initial impulse transfer, high-intensity pressure and shear forms series
152

7.6 Conoid formation in multi-layer target

of dynamic cracking events - ring cracks, radial cracks, lateral cracks - either simultaneously or sequentially. Thus the ceramic becomes extensively cracked, but still interlocked due to confinement via un-deformed portion away from the impact zone. This
state is commonly known as comminuted state or a Mescall zone.
Now if for sufficient time, the ceramic domain can withstand the impulse based on its
higher resistance due to greater thickness, the compressive wave may reach the opposite
free surface and reflected tensile waves starts its motion towards impact surface. At this
point portions of the rear surface may spall off to form an impact crater in the deep target.
Figure 7.13 shows snapshots at different time-instants depicting this distal boundary
effects. This simulation (with average inter-particle spacing of 0.25 mm) shows the
potential of the current framework in investigating coupling mechanisms of dynamic
fracturing in details.

7.6 Conoid formation in multi-layer target

Advanced add-on armours are produced by a clever combination of ceramic tiles backed
by metal or composite plates. In general, the ceramics exhibit hydrostatic pressure dependent behaviour - preventing the inter-grain boundary slip. Here impact of deformable
steel projectile (deforms as per J-C model) on bi-layer ceramic-metal system (metal back
plate exerts influence on whole deformation process) is investigated to demonstrate formation of ceramic conoid.
After impact, generated compressive stress pulse travels along the thickness of the
target as well as the axial direction of projectile. Within the target assembly, the wave
upon reaching the ceramic-metal interface partially get transmitted in backing plate and
partially get reflected in the facing ceramic plate. For sufficiently localised impulse, high
shear creates a punching tendency. Heavy projectiles may cause out-of-plane bending
in the plate assembly. But this bending is obstructed by the backing plate and in most
cases, the tensile cracks starts interacting within the ceramic in dynamic fracturing before sufficient inertia transfer to cause differential fibre tension between front and rear
surfaces. Thus a cone configuration (see phase 1 in figure 7.14) is formed which then
acts as a part of loading material.
For most typical ceramics (here SiC), mechanical impedance is higher than that of
metals (here aluminium). So the reflected wave becomes tensile and initiates failure
within the ceramic - generally with lower tensile capacity than compressive stress carrying capacity. And the ceramic conoid gets further fragmented (see phase 2 in figure
7.14) when the overall bending is still resisted by the backing plate. The pulverization/crushing of the ceramic conoid then allows the projectile to move forward and creating bulging in the backing plate. From simulation aspect identification of conoid and
ceramic fragments as a conglomerate of undamaged particle domain bounded by a ve153

Ceramic Target

(a) Phase 1

(b) Phase 2

Fig. 7.14 Penetration phase (Zaera and Snchez-Glvez, 1998)

neer of damaged particles is critical in investigating these two phases differently. Figure
7.15-7.17 demonstrates these simulated phases (with average inter-particle spacing of
0.333 mm at different time-instant with thick and thin backing aluminium. The interlayer contact was modelled here with springs only active in tension and strength guided
by that of weaker material.
D

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

Fig. 7.15 Conoid formation @ 2 s with thick and thin backing

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

Fig. 7.16 Crushing of conoid @ 12 s with thick and thin Backing

Now, the projectile deformation takes place until the damaged zone reaches the
front face after initiating from bottom of the conoid. This deformation stage during
non-penetration into the target is called dwell (Chen et al., 2007). Short projectile impacting on high-resistant target may completely deformed plastically or shattered during
154

7.7 Closure

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

Fig. 7.17 Bulging at back plate @ 22 s with thick and thin Backing
long damage development time within the ceramic. Without any penetration, this phenomenon is called interface defeat. Shockey et al. (1990) found that confined ceramics
were much more efficient in defeating the penetrator this way redistributing the impact
load to a larger area on the surface of the backing plate. Also flow and abrasive properties of the finely fragmented material govern the penetration resistance of confined
ceramics.
And the thickness of backing plate prevents overall bending by providing higher
resistance with higher thickness. The time before significant bulging in the thicker back
plate also influences the conoid angle. Simultaneously, by dissipating larger share of
imparted energy in plastic deformation (figure 7.18a), the thicker back plate improves
the ballistic efficiency of the overall target assembly. The lower residual kinetic energy
in case of thicker backing (figure 7.18b) provides evidence of of that improved efficiency
in this particular configuration

400000
450000
Thick Backing
Thin Backing

400000
Thick Backing
Thin Backing

350000

350000

KE (J)

PW (J)

300000
250000
200000

300000

150000
100000
50000
0

250000
0

5E-06

1E-05

1.5E-05

2E-05

2.5E-05

3E-05

3.5E-05

5E-06

1E-05

1.5E-05

2E-05

2.5E-05

3E-05

3.5E-05

Time (sec)

Time (sec)

(a) Plastic work done comparison

(b) Kinetic energy comparison

Fig. 7.18 Effect of backing plate thickness

7.7 Closure
The localised fracture process zone and subsequent crack interaction in confined ceramic
is investigated with the help of pseudo-spring SPH simulation framework after adapting
the constitutive models by Johnson and Holmquist (1992) (JH-1). The damage model
155

Ceramic Target
uses pressure dependent intact and failure envelope. The failure strength only to be
followed after complete damage (D = 1) accumulation with increments in plastic stain.
Strain rate effect and bulking after complete damage are also fused in the model.
The spall signal from a flyer plate test on SiC disc is investigated to validate the
implementation aspects of the simulation framework. The smoothening effect of SPH
kernel is found to be introducing a non-local effect in the output signal. Hence the
smoothing length (h) is fine tuned for better performance. But the explicit damage algorithm through pseudo-spring analogy is indispensable as that tuned kernel support is
found to be incapable of producing a conformal signal with earlier experimental and
numerical evidences from literature. Moreover the spall plane remained dormant. Another perspective proved that the tuning does not polluted the simulation with un-desired
numerical instabilities.
After successful reproduction of stress wave propagation in spall test scenario, the
distal boundary efffect in a deep ceramic target impacted upon by deformable cylindrical
projectile is investigated. Multi-axial interaction among discrete cracks and eventual
spalling from opposite face with delayed energy dissipation time in an deep target is
simulated with reasonable robustness.
Finally the conoid formation and fragment identification in a ceramic plate backed
by ductile metal plate is successfully simulated. The influence of relative thickness is
qualitatively studied to indicate influence on conoid angle deviation and energy dissipation characteristics of the target assembly and the co-existing deformation in the
deformable steel projectile. This whole strategy has potential to create a virtual experimental paradigm for efficient designing of target system harnessing the advantages of
both brittle and ductile materials by a parametric variation of design parameters and
converging towards the desired performance response.
The inter-layer contact was modelled with springs which are active only in tension
and the strength is guided by that of weaker material. More sophisticated interface definition and use of adhesive layers poses a scope of improvement in the current framework
other than the obvious requirement of accurate constitutive parameter characterization.
Optimum adhesive layer thickness for the best performance as was demonstrated by
Lpez-Puente et al. (2005) to show various amount of spalling with different adhesive
layer thickness is to be investigated in near future.

156