The material properties and structural characteristics of ballistic composites are crucial to their ballistic performance. A numerical model of a 1.1 g FSP penetrating a UHMWPE target plate was established in this paper. The numerical results show that the failure process of the body armor target plate primarily involves shear failure, interlayer delamination, and tensile failure. Based on this, further research was conducted on the influence of material properties and structural characteristics on the ballistic limit velocity of the UHMWPE armor plate. Furthermore, the study evaluates the effects of elastic modulus, tensile strength, shear strength, number of layers, and interlayer strength on the ballistic limit velocity of UHMWPE body armor. The findings reveal that the ballistic limit velocity is most sensitive to changes in shear strength, with variation rates ranging from −18% to +11%, showing an approximate positive correlation, while the elastic modulus has the smallest impact on ballistic limit velocity, with variation rates ranging from −2% to +4%. Additionally, appropriate interlayer strength can improve the ballistic limit velocity of the body armor to a certain extent. This study provides theoretical methods and recommendations for optimizing anti-penetration performance of UHMWPE body armor.

This paper explores a novel structure aimed at enhancing its blast resistance performance by adding a layer of polyurea coating to the steel-PVC foam-steel sandwich panel. The response of 13 different arrangements of sandwich panels under explosive loading was studied using numerical simulation. The response process can be divided into three deformation stages: (1) Fluid-structure interaction; (2) Compression of the sandwich panel; (3) Dynamic structural response. The dynamic responses of the various sandwich panels to close-range air blast loading were analyzed based on the deformation characteristics, deflection, effective plastic strain, energy absorption, and pressure of the shock wave. The study draws the following conclusions: Reasonably adding a layer of polyurea to the traditional PVC foam sandwich panel can enhance its resistance to shock wave absorption, with a maximum increase of 29.8%; the optimal arrangement for explosion resistance is steel plate-PVC foam-polyurea-steel plate when the polyurea is coated on the back; and the best quality ratio between polyurea and PVC foam is 1:7 when the polyurea is coated on the front.

The material properties and structural characteristics of ballistic composites are crucial to their ballistic performance. Investigation for the influence of the material and structural parameters of UHMWPE body armor on anti-fragmentation penetration performance has been made by numerical simulation in this paper, with a numerical modeling simulating the penetration of a 1.1 g FSP into the target plate of UHMWPE body armor, by which the simulation results demonstrate that the failure process of the body armor target plate primarily involves shear damage, interlayer delamination, and tensile damage. Furthermore, the study evaluates the effects of elastic modulus, tensile strength, shear strength, number of layers, and interlayer strength on the ballistic limit velocity of UHMWPE body armor. The findings reveal that the ballistic limit velocity is most sensitive to changes in shear strength, with variation rates ranging from -18.02% to 10.81%, showing an approximate positive correlation, while the elastic modulus has the smallest impact on ballistic limit velocity, with variation rates ranging from -1.8% to 3.6%. Additionally, appropriate interlayer strength can improve the ballistic limit velocity of the body armor to a certain extent. This study provides theoretical methods and recommendations for optimizing anti-penetration performance of UHMWPE body armor.