Numerical Simulation Study on Influence of Structural Interspace on Anti-penetration Performance of GFRP and Steel Composite Armor System

In this study we investigated the influence of the structural interspace on the ballistic performance of GFRP and steel composite armor system, using finite element analysis by ANSYS/LS-DYNA to simulate, found out the failure modes of steel plates and GFRP plates, and analysed the anti-penetration mechanisms of the composite armor systems. The results indicated that impact by high velocity projectiles, the failure modes of GFRP plates change greatly by setting structural interspace, but less influence on the failure modes of steel plates. Impact by high velocity projectiles, structural interspace has little effect on the anti-penetration performance of steel-GFRP armor structure. Enough interspace can improve the antipenetration performance of GFRP-steel armor structure, but the anti-penetration performance changes little with the increase of the interspace.