2015 Asian Conference on Defence Technology (ACDT)
The Damaged Analysis from Ballistic Threats on
Transparent Armor
Chidchanok Chaichuenchob
Defence Technology Institute
Nonthaburi, Thailand
chidchanok.c@dti.or.th
Abstract—Transparent armor is a group of transparent
materials whose main role is providing the protection against
high velocity projectile or fragment. It is known that the
configuration of transparent armor have a big influence on the
ballistic protection. In this study, various thicknesses of soda-lime
glass sheets were laminated using PVB films as interlayers. The
obtained transparent armor was ballistic tested by 7.62 mm FMJ
ammunition at various projectile velocities. In all specimens, the
ballistic penetration stopped at the first layer. The intercept
counting method was used to determined the damage level
appeared on the test specimen. It was found that the number of
crack on the 12-mm-thick strike plate was higher than those in
19-mm-thick strike plate. However, the calculated new surface
areas of these two specimens were in the same range which
implied the similar amount of kinetic energy absorbed in the
strike plates having different thickness. The cracks bifurcated
were observed when the impact velocity was higher than 838 m/s.
Keywords— transparent armor, cracks, ballistic impact
I. INTRODUCTION
General structure of transparent armor consists of multi-
layer of glass laminated with thin polymer film. The bonding
between these two materials should be strong and the reflective
indices of both materials must be close in order to avoid
distortion visibility. The bonding between polymer film and
glass is processed under controlled pressure and temperature
in an autoclave. This bonding holds the fragments those
exhibited from ballistic treats; protecting the users from injury.
Transparent armor is designed using various materials and
configurations [1-5]. The purpose is to reduce weight,
thickness and increase the ballistic protection performance of
the specimen.
Therefore, the good design requires an understanding of the
specimens’ behavior under high velocity impact loads [6-8].
Shockey et al. [9] studied the failure of glass which impact
tested by projectile rods at the velocities ranged from 300-600
m/s. They reported that the cracking patterns were
corresponding with stress zone around the projectile. The target
was loaded, damaged and displaced by sequent three steps of
tensile, shear and compressive stress states.
It is known that glass has been widely used as a material for
transparent armor because its low cost, high hardness and high
compressive strength. However, glass has some mechanical
978-1-4799-8168-7/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Sujarinee Sinchai
Department of Materials Science, Faculty of Science,
Chulalongkorn University,
Phathumwan, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand
sujarinee.k@chula.ac.th
properties, e.g., its brittleness, low toughness and low tensile
strength, those limits the ballistic performance. Transparent
armor is widely used in many applications, ranging from the
general safety applications in laboratories to the highly
protective applications in military combats. They are
extensively installed in high security buildings and military
ground vehicles, the side that is first attacked by the projectile
impact is called “strike face”. The strike face has a
responsibility on stopping or decreasing the velocity of the
projectile. When the projectile hits the transparent armor, the
impact energy is transferred to the target materials. Within
micro-second, the impact energy is converted to [10]:
1.Energy loss during impact; friction occurring when the
projectile penetrates the armor body. As the strength of
projectile is lower than armor, the projectile is shattered and
eroded. 2.Material damage; the dissipation of impact energy
that create a crater and various crack patterns. The crack
patterns on transparent armor have been analyzed by
Bless [11]. He reported that the cracks were propagated from
the impact point to the edge of specimens. Chronological
damage patterns, starting from the impact point; crater, bundled
radial cracks, the outward fan cracks, the coarse radial cracks
and the bow-tie cracks, were observed on the striking plate.
In this study, the crack evolution on transparent armor
strike plate after ballistic tests using 7.62 mm FMJ ammunition
were analyzed. Correlation between the resulted damages and
the transparent armor configurations also were discussed.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
The transparent armor specimens were prepared with
305x305 mm2 soda-lime glass and polyvinyl butyral (PVB)
films (DuPont™ Butacite®). The glass thicknesses were varied
from 3 to 19 mm and the film thickness was 0.76 mm.
Lamination process consisted of rolling step at 65-80oC and
vacuum step at 13.5 bar and 135oC. The laminated
configurations designed for this study are shown in Fig.1.
The total thickness of all specimens was 67.8 mm.
The ballistic tests were performed according to NIJ 0108.10
standard using 9.6 g Full Metal Jacketed (FMJ) 7.62 mm
ammunition [12]. The amounts of gunpowder were adjusted in
order to modify the projectile velocities (638±15, 738±15,
838±15 and 938±15 m/s). The projectile trajectory angle was
controlled to be perpendicular to the striking surface of the
specimen. The test specimens were clamped to a stable metal
frame and the bullet velocities were recorded by chronograph
located at 2 and 3 m from the muzzle.
The damages pattern of test specimens were detected by
digital camera and determined by counting the radial cracks
and their bifurcation those crossed the circles with 10, 15, 20
and 25 cm radii. The number of radial cracks was used to
estimate the damage behavior of the specimens. After the
counting, test specimens were cross-sectionally cut by water jet
cutting machine in order to analyze the degree of ballistic
penetration.
S-19 S-12
Fig.1. Laminate configurations.
III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
When the projectile hits the laminated glass, compressive
wave propagates from the projectile into the specimen. Relief
waves propagate from the free surface of projectile and a high
tensile stress is generated. As the impact energy dissipates into
the armor body, this results in the spallation of the specimen. In
addition, the projectile and test specimen are deformed. In this
study, a damage area was observed as a crater on the impact
point of the striking plate (called “impact zone”) with the radial
cracks propagating outward from the center of impact. In
impact zone, the projectile and laminated glass were
fragmented and ejected. The crater was surrounded by highly
concentric radial cracks which shown in white area indicating
appreance
Crater
Bundled radial
cracks
Bifurcated radial
cracks
Coarse radial
cracks
Front face
Fig.2. Damage patterns.
intense damages those scattered light. The partially opaque
appearance made these areas difficult to distinguish. The
occurrence of these fine fragments and radial cracks were
caused by compression and shock wave propagation. The
radial cracks got denser and the circular cracks became larger
when the projectile velocity increased. The orders of crack
development are showed in Fig 2.
In all test specimens, the ballistic penetration stopped at the
first layer (or striking plate). At the lowest impact velocity
(638±15m/s), the conoidal cone cracks were extended to the
second layer. Front view of the specimen illustrated the coarse
radial cracks and the crack branching with large angle (Fig.3).
At the ballistic velocity of 738±15 m/s the damage penetration
went through the third layer and stopped at the fourth layer
(Fig.4) and the area of densely crack zone in strike face
increased. As the impact velocity increased, the radial cracks
got denser and the circular cracks area became larger. At the
velocity of 838±15 m/s and above the conoidal cone cracks
propagated from the strike face to rear layer, so that the
damages were observed in every layer of the test specimens.
Nevertheless the surfaces on the rear side of the test specimens
were smooth without any jag.
The specimens those were ballistic tested with various
projectile velocities exhibited different crater volumes and
characteristics. When the projectile hit the laminated structure a
shock wave was generated at the contact. As the hemi-sphere
shock wave propagated from the point of impact, it transferred
energy and induced crater excavation. The crater volumes of
test specimens were evaluated and showed in Fig.5. It was
found that the crater volume increased with the impact
projectile velocity. At low velocity (< 838±15 m/s), the two
configurations have similar crater volume. At 838±15 m/s, the
crater volume of S-19 was significantly higher than S-12. The
crater volume of S-12 was increased rapidly when the
projectile velocity increased to 928.21 m/s and at this velocity
range, the crater volume of S-12 was greater than S-19.
Florets
Bifurcated
radial cracks
Coarse radial
cracks
Rear face
Front face Rear face Front face Rear face
(a) (b)
Fig.3. Damages on S-12 specimens after ballistic tests using the impact velocity of
(a) 639.74 m/s and (b) 928.21 m/s

Fig.4 Cross-sectional view of S-19 specimen.

Fig.5. Crater volumes of test.

specimens.
 In all test specimens, the radial cracks propagated from the As shown in Fig.7, the total numbers of intercepted
impact zone and all of them stopped before they reached the radial cracks on strike plate increased exponentially with the
specimens’ edge. The numbers of intercepted radial cracks in increasing projectile velocity. The specimen with thinner
S-19 and S-12 had the same tendency. The numbers of strike face, S-12, gained higher total numbers of intercepted
intercepted radial cracks linearly increased with the projectile cracks.
velocity, as shown in Fig.6. For S-19, the number of
intercepted radial cracks on the outmost circle was greater than
that on the inside circle. The increasing number of intercepted
cracks indicated that the cracks were bifurcated.

Fig.6. Numbers of intercepted radial cracks on S-19 strike plate.

Fig.7. Total numbers of intercepted radial cracks on S-19 and S-12strike plate.
 Fig.8. Surface area on S-19 and S-12 strike plate.
The new surface areas created from the ballistic impact
load were calculated by adding up the result of the
multiplication between the number of intercepted radial cracks
and the thickness of striking plate and the surface areas of
fragments ejected from the crater those were calculated from
fragmentation analysis. The results are shown in Fig.8. The
new surface areas of S-19 and S-12 at the same ballistic
velocity test were found to be very close. Similar results were
confirmed at all ballistic velocity tests in this study. The results
implied that, at the same impact load, the strike plate with
difference thicknesses could absorb the same range of energy.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
Transparent armor having the same total thickness but
different striking plate thicknesses (19 and 12 mm) were
laminated and ballistic tested using 7.62 mm FMJ ammunition
at various impact velocities. Crater volume and number of
intercept cracks increased with increasing projectile velocity.
The numbers of intercepted radial cracks on S-12 were higher
than S-19. However, in this study, the new surface area created
from the impact load both armor configurations were in the
same range which indicated that the strike plates having
different thickness converted the same impact energy from the
projectile. This observation can be used as an idea and applied
on the better transparent armor design.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are grateful to Defence Science and technology
Policy, Ministry of Defence and National Electronics and
Computer Technology Center, Thailand, for the financial
support, to Naval Ordnance Department for the ballistic testing
facilities and to Thai-German Specialty Glass Co., Ltd. for
supporting on materials and lamination facilities.
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