Numerical simulation study of ballistic performance of Al2O3/aramid-carbon hybrid FRP laminate composite structures subject to impact loading

Abstract Aramid-carbon hybrid fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) laminates have been widely used in the design of the ceramic/FRP laminate composite armor systems for their outstanding mechanical properties. In order to figure out the influence of the stacking sequence of the aramid-carbon hybrid FRP laminate on the ballistic performance of the ceramic/FRP laminate composite structures, a finite element model (FEM) which is used to simulate the condition of the 7.62 M61 AP against the Al2O3/aramid-carbon hybrid FRP laminate composite structure is carried out in ABAQUS/Explicit software, and the JH-2 constitutive model and 3D-Hashin failure criteria which is programmed by a user subroutine VUMAT are utilized to describe the mechanical behavior of Al2O3 and FRP laminate in this FEM. The accuracy of this FEM is checked by a verification FEM and the method of establishing this FEM is proved to be reasonable. The simulation results reveals that when the carbon fiber is stacked at the top of the aramid-carbon hybrid FRP laminate, the ballistic performance and the integrity of the geometry structure of the ceramic/FRP laminate composite structure is the best when the proportion of the carbon fiber in the hybrid FRP laminate is a constant, which provides an innovative way to enhance the ballistic performance of the ceramic/FRP laminate composite armor system.