Jones, JDReinecke, John DPambuka, L2025-03-192025-03-192024-01978-0-7972-1914-4http://hdl.handle.net/10204/14194In the design of protected vehicles there is a constant trade-off between mobility, protection, and cost. To protect against increasing threat levels, designers are usually required to use armour materials with increased mass and thickness. However, this has a negative effect on the vehicle’s mobility. Reducing the mass of armour plates for the same level of protection usually requires the use of more expensive materials, thus increasing the cost. The aim of this project was to investigate how the areal density of armour plates, used for vehicle protection against a NATO Level 3 ballistic threat, can be reduced whilst still maintaining the required level of threat protection, and optimising cost by exploring varying material layers in a composite armour plate assembly. This work used computational modelling to evaluate protection capabilities of various combinations of lower cost materials that were then manufactured and tested. The test plate combination initially selected were based on the published computational work of Rahman et al., [2]. These proposed, multilayered, plates computationally provided a reduction in aerial density of 12% compared to equivalent homogeneous amour steel plate. Additional plate combinations, using Strenx 700E Al-7075-T6 with Kevlar and Dyneema layers, were proposed and computationally evaluated and assessed. These multilayered plates were then manufactured and subjected to ballistic tests against NATO level 3 (7.62 x 51 mm Tungsten Carbide (WC)) armour piecing rounds. None of the proposed and computationally verified plates provided the required ballistic protection. The main reason for this is ascribed to the application and use of only published material parameters and the implementation of the failure model.FulltextenBallistic limit7.62 mm bulletsJohnson-CookRecht-IpsonArticleN/A