Influences of thickness and stacking sequence on ballistic impact behaviors of GLARE 5 FML plates: Part II – Numerical studies

Abstract

This two-part article examines the effects of thickness and stacking sequence of GLARE 5 (2024-T3 aluminum alloy-unidirectional S2-glass/epoxy) fiber–metal laminated (FML) plates subjected to ballistic impact. Part I presented experimental observations of damage development in the specimens, C-scan damage contours, projectile velocity profiles and ballistic limit velocities ( V50). Part II concerns with finite element (FE) modeling of the FML plates. The 3D FE code, LS-DYNA, was used to model and validate the experimental results. Experimentally obtained incident projectile impact velocity versus the residual velocity ( Vi∼ Vr), damage patterns and bullet residual length were used to validate the FE model. Good agreement was achieved between experimental and numerical results. It was found that for a given specimen thickness/stacking-sequence, by increasing the projectile incident velocity up to its V50 value, the maximum contact force increased. By further increasing the projectile velocity above its V50, the maximum contact force was relatively invariant with respect to an increase in the projectile incident velocity.