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The use of ceramics as energy absorbents has been studied by many researchers and some improvements
in the ballistic performance of ceramic tiles have been made by coating them with different classes of
materials (e.g. E-glass/epoxy, carbon-fiber/epoxy, etc.). Using ceramics for energy absorbing applications
leads to a significant weight reduction of the system. Therefore, any modification to the ceramic
configuration in the system which leads to more energy absorption with the same or less areal density
is significant. On the other hand, polyurea has been proved to be an excellent energy dissipating agent
in many applications. Inspired by this, we are studying the effect of coating ceramics with polyurea
and other materials, on the energy absorption and ballistic performance of the resulting ceramic-based
composites.
In this study, we investigate the effect of polyurea on ballistic efficiency of ceramic tiles. To this end,
we have performed a set of penetration tests on polyurea-ceramic composites. In our experiments, a high
velocity projectile is propelled to impact and perforate the ceramic-polyurea composite. The velocity
and mass of the projectile are measured before and after the penetration. The change in the kinetic
energy of the projectile is evaluated and compared for different polyurea-ceramic configurations (e.g.,
polyurea on front face, polyurea on back face, polyurea between two ceramic tiles, etc.). The experimental
results suggest that polyurea is not as effective as other restraining materials such as E-glass/epoxy and
carbon-fiber/epoxy.
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