Ballistic Performance of Thermoplastic Fiber-Reinforced Metal Laminates Subjected to Impact Loadings

Abstract

This paper aims to predict the damage and fracture behavior of thermoplastic fiber-reinforced metal laminates (TFMLs) under ballistic impact loadings. A dynamic metal constitutive model has been employed and implemented in Abaqus/Explicit through a vectorized user material subroutine (VUMAT). The effects of the Lode angle, temperature, and strain rate are considered in the strength model, while the effects of stress triaxiality, Lode angle, temperature, and strain rate are taken into account in the failure criteria. To assess the validity and superiority of the proposed model, the numerically predicted responses of polypropylene fiber-reinforced metal laminates subjected to varying impact energies were systematically compared with corresponding experimental results. Additionally, a comparative analysis was performed between the numerical simulation results predicted by the present model and those obtained using other constitutive models, such as the Johnson–Cook (JC) constitutive model and the elastoplastic constitutive model. Furthermore, the effect of projectile types on the ballistic performance of TFMLs have been systematically investigated. The findings demonstrate that the failure pattern predicted by the current model closely aligns with the experimental observations, while both the Johnson–Cook (JC) constitutive model and the elastoplastic constitutive model were unable to accurately replicate the experimentally observed failure behavior. This study also reveals that the projectile’s nose shape plays a significant role in influencing the perforation behavior of TFMLs, affecting both the residual velocity and damage.

Keywords

• thermoplastic FMLs
• ballistic impact
• damage
• fracture
• FE model