Analysis of ballistic impacts on composite materials by infrared active thermography

In this study, we investigated the assessment of the damaged area on composites ballistic plates subjected to high velocity impact. The active pulsed thermography technique was used for performing post-mortem analysis of the impacted specimens. Quantitative analysis of the damaged areas shows consistent results with the size of the projectile suggesting high precision of the quantification done in this work. This quantitative defect analysis combined with knowledge of projectile velocity allows for characterization of absorbed energy and differentiation of generated defect types. This allow for the evaluation of material efficiency in spreading absorbed energy over large areas. Our observations indicate that high velocity shots tend to induce smaller impact damage areas characterized primarily by fiber breakage, while low velocity shots tend to induce larger impact damage areas featuring predominantly delamination and matrix cracking damage mechanisms.