JAST, 2018;11(2):17-23

A NUMERICAL MODEL FOR BALLISTIC IMPACT RESPONSE OF

COMPOSITE ARMORS
*
Demet BALKAN Seher EKEN
Ondokuz Mayıs University
Astronautical Engineering Aerospace Engineering
kececidem@itu.edu.tr seher.eken@omu.edu.tr

Received: 12th April 2018 Accepted: 21st June 2018

ABSTRACT

In this study, we present a numerical model to simulate the ballistic impact of a rigid right circular cylinder
(RCC) projectile into a woven fabric target. The numerical solution of transverse ballistic impact on a laminar
biaxial fabric is obtained using a forward finite-difference method. The ballistic impact analysis for different
materials of targets made of aramid and polyethylene fibers are simulated to investigate the effect of fabric
material on the ballistic resistance. Numerical simulations are performed to reveal the influences of crimp factor
and fabric material on the ballistic performance of woven fabrics. Various cases have been presented showing
the variations of yarn strains, yarn velocities, and yarn displacements over time.

Keywords: Composite Armors, Right Circular Cylinder Projectile, Forward Finite Difference Method, Crimp
Factor.

1. INTRODUCTION been a very challenging task due to complexity of the

Since the beginning of human history, man have worn
protective clothing made of a wide range of materials
such as animal skin, silk, copper and steel, to protect
themselves against animal attacks, sharp objects and
war bullets. Over the years with the development of
more technologically advanced weapons, the need for
more effective forms of personal protection has been
become vital; especially today, not only for the
military personnel but also for the civilian people all
over the world.
Due to the recent advancements in material sciences,
particularly by the invention of synthetic fiber, body
armors made of high performance fiber-reinforced
fabrics are lighter and stronger than the ones made
with other types of material such as steel, and yet they
offer better the protection of personnel and equipment
against low speed to high speed projectiles. Main
advantages of high performance fabrics are that they
generally have high modulus/weight ratios, high
strength/weight ratios, low density and low rupture
unit elongation values (<4%). Table 1 lists the
commercialized fibers that have extensive application
in armor technology and as well as in many
technology-based products.
Although the usage of the high performance fibers are
grown extensively in the manufacture of body armors,
the ballistic impact problem into the body armors has
problem that incorporates both micro and
macrostructural aspects. Thus analytical and
numerical models that accurately predict the ballistic
behavior has been slowly progressed. One of the
earliest work in this field starts with the analytical
study by Rakhmatulin [1, 2]. As for one of the first
attempts to develop numerical simulation models
Roylance et al. [3-5] established a pin-joint model to
simulate the ballistic impact into woven fabric
structures. This pin-joint model consists of laminar
square lattices of connected elastic rods representing
the yarn segments between crossovers. Moreover,
Phoenix et al. [6-8] has presented an elegant study for
the ballistic impact response of fibrous materials,
focusing on an un-tensioned 2D membrane impacted
transversely by a blunt-nosed projectile.
Furthermore, the experimental studies are of great
importance to uncover the ballistic impact
phenomenon in which a wide range of system
parameters are actively involved. Due to the difficulty
in winnowing down these parameters based on
ranking their importance, the need of testing each
parameter becomes essential and yet costly and timely
inefficient. On the other hand, the numerical models
[9-12] established in the computer environment are
cheaper and more effective tools that have been
widely applied to reveal the mechanism of ballistic
impact.

* BALKAN, EKEN
Corresponding Author
17
 A Numerical Model For Ballistic Impact Response Of Composite Armors

Within these contexts the aim of this study is to
present our computational model [13-15] which
simulates the ballistic impact of the flat projectile onto
the woven fabric targets. After providing details on
the numerical formulation of the model, we choose
fabric targets made of two different materials, i.e. the
aramid and the polyethylene fibers, which have an
extensive usage in body armor and personnel
protection applications. We simulate the ballistic
impact analysis for both fabrics and investigate the
effect of fabric material on the ballistic resistance. The
influences of crimp factor and slip viscosity on the
strain profiles, velocities and displacements are further
studied. Considering the crimp, we evaluate the
performance of these fabrics and determine whether
aramid or polyethylene fabric has the superior ballistic
resistance.

Table 1. The commercialized high performance fibers.

Molecular Structure Brand Name Company
Aramid Kevlar® Du Pont
UHMWPE* Dyneema® DSM
UHMWPE* Spectra® Honeywell
PBO** Zylon® Toyobo
*
UHMWPE: Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene
**
PBO: p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole

2. NUMERICAL MODEL A forward finite-difference method is applied to

This section presents the elements used in both
modelling of the projectile and fabric. This model is
developed at Cornell University over the past few
years [13-15]. It is structured as an over-under
interlacing of yarns to form a plain weave fabric layer
and simulates the flat-nosed, right circular cylinder
(RCC) projectile with a radius of rproj, mass of mproj,
and initial velocity of vproj. The illustration of the
projectile can be found in Figure 1. The impact
process is initiated using conservation of momentum.
numerically solve the problem of transverse ballistic
impact on a woven crimp model for biaxial fabrics
fabric. The computational domain can be seen in
Figure 2. The fabric structure is constructed using
square lattice system of pin-joint models. The discrete
masses represent the masses of yarns that are inter-
connected by elastic spring elements representing the
elastic properties, or stiffness of the yarns and lastly,
the dampers represent the viscoelastic properties of the
yarns.

Figure 1. The geometry of RCC projectile which is shot in reverse direction.

BALKAN, EKEN
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 A Numerical Model For Ballistic Impact Response Of Composite Armors

Figure 2. Computational domain, mass-spring-damper system representing woven geometry for horizontal
and vertical yarns, and schematic of woven fabric.

As mentioned before, the numerical solution is , and and , and

handled by forward-finite difference method [10, 13-
15]. The Newtonian equation of motion in all three
Cartesian coordinates are solved for the current nodal
velocities
(1)
Equation (1) can be written in impulse-momentum
format for a given time t and in the all directions:
(2a)
denote the projections of tension forces of horizontal
and vertical yarns, respectively, in the directions of x-,
y- and z-directions at time t-Δt.
Once the velocity field has been determined, these
values are used to solve for the nodal positions in all
directions at time t.
(3a)
(3b)

(3c)
(2b)
(3d)
(2c)
(3e)

(2d) (3f)

(2e) Lastly, the spring element lengths Lt are determined

and then used to solve for updated strains within the
springs as given in the following:
(2f)
(4)
where vhori,xt, vhori,yt ve vhori,zt represents the velocity
components of horizontal yarns, while vvert,xt, vvert,yt
and vvert,zt represent the ones of vertical yarns at time t.

BALKAN, EKEN
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 A Numerical Model For Ballistic Impact Response Of Composite Armors
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Numerical simulations are carried out for the biaxial
fabric model whose geometrical and material
properties are given in Table 2. The projectile
properties which is chosen as a rigid RCC (right
circular cylinder) projectile are as well listed in the
same table.
Table 2. Properties of selected fabric materials.
Fabric Geometrical Properties
Patch length,
Yarn thickness,
Crimp,
Fabric Material Properties
Young's modulus in the x-axis,
Young's modulus in the x-axis,
Density,
Failure strain,
Projectile Properties
Mass,
Radius,
Initial veloctiy,
For selected values of crimp factors, Figure 3 is
plotted to demonstrate the variation of horizontal
strains of yarns with respect to dimensionless time,
which is defined as the number of projectile radii
traveled by a tension wave . As we
observe from this figure yarns made of aramid
fibers tend to have higher strain values than those
of polyethylene fibers. Another observation is that
the strains in the horizontal and vertical yarns for
both fibers are reduced in the presence of the crimp
factor.
Similar to the previous results, Figure 4(a) and (b)
are plotted to demonstrate the variation of the
deceleration of vertical velocity over the
dimensionless time for selected values of crimp
factors. We see that deceleration of the projectile is
faster for the yarns made of aramid fiber than
polyethylene fibers. Also, fabrics with higher crimp
than the ones with lesser crimp show slower
deceleration of the projectile. This trend is
BALKAN, EKEN
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The ballistic impact simulations are performed for
fabrics made of two different materials, i.e.
polyethylene, aramid. The effect of crimp on the strain
profiles, yarn velocities and yarn displacements are
investigated for both fabrics, in Figures 3, 4 and 5.
100 mm
1 mm
0°-5°
Aramid Polyethylene
117 GPa 89 GPa
117 GPa 89 GPa
980 kg/m3 1440 kg/m3
3.00 % 2.81 %
8 gr
5.6 mm
350 m/s
applicable for both aramid and polyethylene fibers,
as well as the horizontal and vertical yarn sets.
In addition to the deceleration of the projectile, the
displacement of the yarns are plotted as a function
of dimensionless time in Figure 5(a) and (b). As it
is observed that the fabrics made of aramid fibers
have displaced more than the fabrics made of
polyethylene fibers. Also, yarns with higher crimp
is observed to have higher displacement values than
the ones with lesser crimp.
One last point is the fluctuations observed both in
strains and vertical velocity given in Figures 3 and
4. As seen, large oscillations which have a
numerical origin rather than a physical one, are
captured for the dimensionless time in between
. With a careful inspection to Figure 3, it
is seen that as the crimp ratio increases, these
oscillation tend to grow larger, this trend is clearer
in Figure 4.
 A Numerical Model For Ballistic Impact Response Of Composite Armors

Figure 3. Variations of strains for horizontal and vertical yarns with respect to dimensionless time for fabrics made
of aramid and polyethylene fibers.

(a) (b)
Figure 4. Variations of vertical velocity for (a) horizontal and (b) vertical yarns with respect to dimensionless time
for fabrics made of aramid and polyethylene fibers.

BALKAN, EKEN
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 A Numerical Model For Ballistic Impact Response Of Composite Armors
(a)
Figure 5. Variations of vertical displacements for (a) horizontal and (b) vertical yarns with respect to dimensionless
time for fabrics made of aramid and polyethylene fibers.
4. CONCLUSION
In this study we present a numerical model to simulate
the ballistic impact of a rigid a right circular cylinder
(RCC) projectile into woven fabric targets. The fabric
structure is constructed using pin-joint models. In this
model, the masses of yarns are represented by the
discrete masses, elastic spring elements are
represented by the stiffness of the yarns and the
viscoelastic properties of the yarns are modeled using
the damper elements. The impact process is simply
initiated using conservation of momentum.
The numerical solution of transverse ballistic impact
on a laminar biaxial fabric is obtained using a forward
finite-difference method. For this purpose, the
impulse-momentum equation in three directions are
solved and the nodal velocities are determined. Once
the velocity field has been found, following that the
nodal positions, nodal forces and strains are
determined.
After providing more details on the numerical
formulation of the model, we choose different
materials of fabric targets and simulate the ballistic
impact analysis for both fabrics to investigate the
effect of fabric material on the ballistic resistance.
Strain profiles, out-of-plane fabric displacement and
projectile velocity decay over time are computed to
present the influences of crimp factor and fabric
material on the ballistic resistance. Mainly, crimp
factor is found to have a favorable effect on the
ballistic performance of woven fabrics. Also, as the
strain profiles are concerned, polyethylene fibers are
BALKAN, EKEN
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(b)
found to have better ballistic performance than aramid
fibers due to low strains measures after impact.
5. REFERENCES
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Mekh 11, 379–82 (Rusça’dan çeviri), 1947.
[2] Rakhmatulin KhA, Normal impact at a varying velocity
on a flexible fiber Uchenye Zapiski Moskovosk gos Univ 4,
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[13] Zhou R., “Effects of Crimp and Slip on Laminar and
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