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Ballistic depth of penetration studies in Dyneema® composites

Conference Paper · January 2013

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27th International Symposium on Ballistics April 22-26,
2013, Freiburg, Germany

BALLISTIC DEPTH OF PENETRATION STUDIES

IN DYNEEMA® COMPOSITES

U. Heisserer1, H. van der Werff2, J. Hendrix2

1
DSM Ahead, Materials Science Centre, P.O. Box 18, 6160 MD Geleen, The Netherlands
2
DSM Dyneema, P.O. Box 1163, 6160 BD Geleen, The Netherlands

A detailed very basic experimental study of ballistic depth of penetration tests on hard
pressed ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene Dyneema® HB26 plates impacted by
non-deforming steel spheres is reported. The depth of penetration shows surprisingly an
almost linear relation with the impacting kinetic energy suggesting no significant change in
penetration mechanisms for the reported test series. The absorbed energy per penetrated
thickness has a tendency to increase for higher velocities and thinner plates up to
40 J/(kg/m²). From the kinetic energy and depth of penetration an apparent force and stress
on the projectile can be worked out. The apparent stress is in the order of 1-1.6 GPa.

MOTIVATION

In the quest to understand and improve the performance of light weight armor
from ultra-strong fibers the dimensional analysis of Phil Cunniff [1] is an important
milestone. Cunniff used dimensional analysis supported with a large experimental data
set to argue that the only two essential fiber characteristics are the speed of sound
along the fiber (root of fiber modulus E over density ) and the weight-normalized
energy to break a fiber in tensile mode. High performance fibers exhibit nearly
Hookean behavior at the high strain rates considered here, hence the specific energy to
break is given by 0.5 , where is the strength of the fiber, the elongation strain
at failure and the density. The product of both quantities has dimensions m³/s³, so
to relate it to a critical velocity in m/s the cube root of is computed,
1 2
3 3
3 1 E 1 1
(m/s) . . 1 1 1
.
2 2 E 3 2 6

This elegant relation allows collapsing the ballistic limit velocities (v50) of the
investigated systems onto a universal master curve. This approach works surprisingly
well to predict the trends for many fiber systems. It suggests that high strength and low
density are dominating parameters to improve ballistic performance. There is also a
weak dependence on the modulus. This equation is derived analytically by Phoenix [2]
and corroborated numerically by van der Werff, Heisserer and Phoenix [3,4].
However the assumption behind is a tensile, membrane like failure.
In this work we want to study the other extreme: deep penetrations into thick
targets. The aim is to see if the penetration characteristics changes for higher
velocities.
 BALLISTIC TESTS

For the ballistic tests we used composite armor Dyneema® HB26 plies that were
hot-pressed at 165 bar to plates of nominal areal density of 12.5 kg/m² and 25 kg/m²,
i.e. thickness of approximately 12.8 mm and 25.5 mm respectively. The plates were
cut to dimensions of 10x10 cm² and only one shot was fired per plate. A description of
the Dyneema® SK76 fiber properties and composite construction can be found in
Russell et al. [5], a detailed fractographic analysis of impacted panels is given in
Greenhalgh et al [6].
The plates were clamped at the edges onto a steel holder with a 5 cm diameter hole
at the center. The hard steel spheres from ball bearings with a diameter 5.58mm and a
mass of 0.7 g were placed on AK47 cartridges with the desired amount of propellant
and launched from a smooth barrel. The steel spheres were measured after the test and
no deformation was found in all cases. As a contra we also tested brass spheres of the
same dimension and found the onset of deformation at around 400 m/s (not reported
here).
Velocity screens were installed between the barrel and target. The target was 5 m
from the barrel end. Furthermore a high speed camera next to the target allowed the
evaluation of the impact velocity and residual velocity in the penetration case.
The sample dimensions before (thickness) and after the test were recorded. Tested
plates were dissected and the depth of penetration (dop) was determined. We define
dop as defined as the original thickness of the plate minus the remaining thickness.
Examples of penetrated plates are given in Fig. 1.

Figure 1. Dyneema® HB26 panels (areal density 25 kg/m²)

impacted with steel spheres at different velocities.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The basic outcome is the relation of depth of penetration vs. impact velocity as
shown in Fig. 2. The power fit gives a good approximation, however two linear lines
could also be used distinguishing the region below 600 m/s and above. It is interesting
that there is a single smooth, almost linear curve suggesting that the penetration
mechanism was very similar over the velocity range investigated. Furthermore the thin
plate exhibits a bit larger spread than the thick plate. For the thin plate penetrations
occurred at a striking velocity above 1160 m/s.

Figure 2. Depth of penetration vs. striking velocity for two plate thicknesses.

Plotting the absorbed energy Ukin=0.5 m (vs²-vr²) in Fig. 3, where vs is the

striking velocity and vr the residual velocity of the sphere with mass m, against the
imparted kinetic energy Ukin=0.5 m v s² we note that in the penetration case the energy
removed from the projectile is constant around 400 J irrespective of the impact
velocity. As the penetrated target has an areal density AD of 12.5 kg/m² this
corresponds to an absorbed energy Eabs= Ukin/AD of 32 J/(kg/m2). This behavior
can also be found on yarn level. When studying the impact on single yarns by steel
spheres Carr [7] noted also that the absorbed energy for aramid yarns is lower and
decreases with higher impact energy while for Dyneema® SK66 (a predecessor of the
current commercial SK76 yarn used here) the absorbed energy was constant or even
increasing with higher impact energy.
 Figure 3. Absorbed vs. impacting kinetic energy for the thin and the thick HB26 target.

Computing the absorbed energy per penetrated areal density (divide Ukin by the
product of density and depth of penetration) we can make the interesting observation
in Fig. 4 that the thin targets have a higher absorbed energy per thickness than the
thick ones.

Figure 4. Absorbed vs. impacting kinetic energy for the thin and the thick HB26 target on the left axis.
Additionally on the right vertical axis the remaining back face deformation is shown. The dashed
vertical line indicates the onset of penetrations for the thin target at 1130 m/s.
 This difference in energy absorption capacity manifests itself by the fact that the
blue diamonds in the stop case (left of the vertical blue dashed line) are higher than the
red squares. This can be related to the (remaining) bulge of the back surface as shown
in Fig. 4 with the curved dashed lines (through the small circles). Thus we see a
gradual activation of a membrane-like response. That mechanism is activated in the
thin targets at lower impact velocities.

To finally arrive at an apparent stress on the projectile we first plot the projectile
kinetic energy vs. the depth of penetration, cf. Fig. 5. The exponents of the power fit
of the stop cases for the thin and the thick test series are almost the same (1.166 for the
thin plates and 1.174 for the thick), however the pre-factor of the thin series is 8%
higher. This is in line with the observation from Fig. 4 that the thin plates have a
slightly more effective mechanism to absorb energy by an additional bending
component.

Figure 5.Projectile kinetic energy vs. depth of penetration for two target thicknesses.
The dashed vertical line indicates the thickness of the thin plates.

Work is defined as the product of a force F and displacement x in the direction of

the force, symbolically W = Fx . We can equate the work to stop the projectile to the
imparted kinetic energy. Consequently we obtain an apparent force F on the projectile
by dividing the kinetic energy by the depth of penetration x. The result is shown in
Fig. 6. In this representation of the data there is a significant amount of scatter and the
trend lines are basically a guide to the eye. However, the theme that the thin plates are
more effective in stopping a bullet is repeated, here in the form that the force on the
projectile is overall a bit larger.
 Figure 6. Apparent force on the projectile stopped in panels of different thickness.

The apparent forces in the order of 25 to 40 KN are more meaningful if we look at

the corresponding stresses. For the hard steel sphere no projectile deformation was
recorded. Hence we can simply divide the apparent force by the cross sectional area of
a 5.56mm diameter sphere to arrive at an apparent stress, cf. Fig. 7.

Figure 7. Apparent stress on the projectile stopped in panels of different thickness.

 The apparent stress ranges between 1 and 1.6 GPa, again with the trend to increase
for higher velocities and thinner plates. To put this transverse stress (perpendicular to
the fibers) into perspective: the tensile failure stress of the Dyneema® SK76 fiber used
in the HB26 composite is 3.6 GPa.
The approach used to arrive from the kinetic energy and the depth of penetration at
an apparent force is basically the same principle as used in the Tate penetration
equations. However there it is assumed that the force during penetration is constant.
We found that the apparent force on the projectile increases with impact velocity, see
Fig. 6 and consequently the absorbed energy per penetrated areal density, Fig. 4 is
increasing.

SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK

We report a very fundamental depth of penetration study on thick Dyneema®

HB26 hard pressed plates with areal density of 12.5 kg/m² and 25 kg/m². A non-
deforming steel sphere allowed ruling out any complicating influences of projectile
yaw or plastic projectile deformation on the results. The basic observation was that the
depth of penetration is an almost linear relation with impacting kinetic energy of the
projectile. This is somehow surprising when you have the common picture of the three
deformation stages of cutting followed by delamination and bulging in mind, nicely
shown by [8] for an AK47 bullet impacting a Dyneema® plate. The linear relation
also suggests that during the deep penetration process the same material properties
matter, i.e. there is a confirmation for the need of strong materials also at the strike
face.
The data set allowed to further investigate the absorbed energy per penetrated
thickness. Here it turns out that thin plates are more effective in absorbing the kinetic
energy of the projectile, however this is related to an additional mechanism: bending
of the plate in a membrane-like mode.
Following the idea of the Tate penetration approach we can divide the kinetic
energy by the depth or penetration to obtain an apparent force and stress acting on the
projectile. This force and stress increase with increasing striking velocity.

This data set is helpful to enhance understanding of the deep penetration process and it
can serve as a validation case for numerical simulations of the same process. So far we
can only derive an apparent force acting on the projectile. It would be very interesting
to have an instrumented test where the projectile deceleration in the target could be
followed online in time and space. For this Doppler methods, e.g. [9,10], or
instrumented projectiles, e.g. [11], could be interesting provided they can offer the
necessary resolution. Knowing the velocity and position over time, the instantaneous
force profile is accessible using Newton’s second law.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We acknowledge the contribution of Tom Smeets and Bram Meijers in carrying
out the experimental program with the DSM Dyneema Technical Center Europe.
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