Comparative Study of Ballistic Performance Parameter of Kevlar/Epoxy Composite Laminate

In this paper, the authors study the impact of parabolic nose projectile on Kevlar/epoxy laminate with different orientations. Earlier work [17] on numerical analysis has been carried out with the projectile with conical nose and the analysis of the composite laminate is carried out using 3D solid elements. In this work, the authors use a more realistic parabolic nose model for the projectile. Moreover, 2D continuum shell elements for the composite with integrated Hashin damage model are used for damage initiation and linear fracture energy properties instead of 3D solid element. The residual velocities are qualitatively compared against the residual velocities obtained from FE analysis which was performed with 3D solid elements for laminate and conical projectile. The trend of the reduction in residual velocity for different orientations of the fibers is found to be in good agreement with the experimental results. This proposed analysis method using 2D continuum shell element could produce qualitatively comparable results of 3D solid elements by saving significant amount of run time in the analysis.