Experimental and numerical analysis of the effect of using perforated plates in front of the target against ballistic impact

In the Past, monolithic armor plates were used to protect people and equipment. Today, the use of armored plates with unique designs (a combination of base plate & perforated plate) is considered. This new design is a structure consisting of at least two plates, one with a hole and the other monolithic (without holes), and they are placed in such a way that the perforated plate is placed in front of the monolithic plate (base plate) and this combination generally prevents the projectiles from penetrating and damaging the protected target. Experimental and numerical studies performed on these structures showed that this combination of plates has up to 31% less weight compared to integrated armored plates with the same ballistic protection capability. In the performed experiments, it was found that the edge effect causes deviation in the projectile path and erosion in the projectile sharp point, which in total prevents the projectile from penetrating the base plate and passing through it. The distance between the perforated & base plate was also studied, in which it was found that in order to have a proper effect of perforated plate, at least a distance greater than the length of the projectile between the two plates should be considered. By comparing the results obtained from experimental and numerical studies performed using LS-DYNA software, a good convergence between the results has been observed.