Effects of Accelerated Ageing of Ballistic Composites on Impact Behavior

Abstract

Military personnel, Law enforcement agencies, and Individuals employed on security duties require the highest level of protection when dealing with the lethal physical, chemical, and biological threats. Protective gears requirement is increasingly focused on ballistic protection level, anti-stabbing, and anti-biological protection. Ballistic effect onto woven flexible composites is a very complex problem given the structural binding of the materials, projectile’s impact velocity, material anisotropic behavior, and given boundary conditions. Ballistic products undergo degradation and disintegration with the passage of time due to actual operating conditions, usage, environmental conditions and storage techniques. The main objective of this thesis is to forecast the strength and durability of the soft ballistic inserts which are made up of the fibers of “Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene” (UHMWPE). This study introduces a sequence of tests to determine the working life as well as to adapt to ballistic, physical, and mechanical properties resulting from rapid conditions of operation, by using composite ballistic inserts simulation. This research used data on the following ageing modeling techniques such as simulations for the ballistic inserts. The effect of mechanical loading and temperature cycling, as well as the solution simulating human transpiration, has been shown to affect and speed up the process of Polyethylene (PE) Depletion. Samples of Ballistic products were analyzed under specific conditions for 5, 7, 9, and 13 years in order to determine the connection and association between the normal ageing mechanism and the simulated ageing mechanism. In order to model and simulate ballistic impacts, ANSYS Workbench Explicit Dynamics (R1 2020) and SolidWorks (2018) were used. The simulation was based on systematic research by using the experimental approach and reference outcomes to evaluate composite armor ageing behavior