AU2011342726A1 - Ceramic armor tiles - Google Patents

Abstract

A tile for use in an armor, comprising channels passing along the tile's thickness and distributed so that, in a plan view of the tile, a maximal dimension of each channel is smaller than a distance between the closest points of each pair of adjacent channels.

Description

WO 2012/081023 PCT/IL2011/050061 1 CERAMIC ARMOR TILES Field of the invention This invention relates to the ceramic armor component field. Background of the invention 5 Ceramic armor is typically used for body armor and for the protection of different types of vehicles, such as various types of land vehicles, ships, and aircraft. Usually, a ceramic armor is made of a ceramic tile and composite material as backing. Typically, ceramic tiles are adhesively secured to a substrate then encapsulated in an outer cover. These substrate and cover represent the backing composite material. 10 The ceramic armor system is then attached to a vehicle by a variety of means or merely placed in a fabric pocket, as in the case of body armor. The function of the ceramic layer is to break the bullets while the function of the composite backing is to hold the ceramic in places during the impact and to catch the fragments produced during the impact and dissipate their mechanical energy by a plastic 15 deformation. A very important characteristic of ceramic component armors is their ability to defeat multiple shots within a relatively small area. The challenge in developing multi-hit ceramic composite armor is to control the damage of the armor structure after the impact in its proximity. While metal armor have inherently this characteristic, that is related to the metal 20 ductility and ability to withstand plastic deformation, in ceramic armor components it must be addressed by an appropriate design of the armor components. The damage produced in ceramic hard face components by projectile impact can be classified into (1) a comminution zone of highly pulverized material in the shape of a conoid under the incident projectile footprint, 25 (2) radial and circumferential cracks, (3) spalling, through the thickness and lateral directions by reflected tensile pulses, and (4) impact from comminuted fragments. Crack propagation is arrested at the boundaries of an impacted tile if the web between the tiles in the tile array is properly designed. However, stress wave propagation can occur 30 through the web and into the adjacent tiles and can still damage the adjacent tiles.

WO 2012/081023 PCT/IL20111/050061 2 As far as the ceramic layer is considered, the most common approach to increase the multihit capability of a ceramic composite armor is the use of ceramic tiles mosaics. The physical separation between the tiles in the mosaic constitute a barrier to the propagation of the ceramic damage that occur during the impact. In this way the area of the ceramic 5 strike face damaged by an impact is limited to the size of tile, or maximum to a portion of two if the impact occurs across the junction. From the industrial point of view the drawback of this approach is the increased complexity introduced in the composite manufacturing. During the bonding of the tiles a great care must be used to avoid that an excessive gap between the tiles is introduced. 10 While a minimum gap (0.1-0.3mm) may be beneficial, an excessive one (0.5mm or greater) constitute a week point of the ceramic armor to be absolutely avoided. For the above mentioned reasons the lay-up of mosaic in the construction of composite armor on industrial scale is the most labor intensive production phase. Usually tiles are aligned manually by trained personnel. The increasing multi-hit requirements are forcing 15 armor designer to adopt more and more mosaics based on to small ceramic, like tiles 20mmx20mm or 30mmx30mm. When using such small tiles, the number of components per square meter increase very rapidly to more than 1000-2000 units. An additional drawback of ceramic components armor based on mosaics is how to guarantee that in the finished armor every gap between the tiles in below the maximum 20 allowed (usually 0.3/4mm). The only possibility is to X-ray the entire panel to measure the gap between the tiles. This is a significant expensive measurement. In order to overcome the above said difficulties, it has been thought to use larger tiles with some discontinuities in their structure. These slots can involve the whole tiles thickness or only part of it and function as breaking barrier to the crack propagation during the impact 25 phase,. In the patent requests EP 1 878 933, WO 2005114089 and GB 2377006 are described different applications of the above said solution. Unfortunately, this finding did not reveal itself as completely satisfying since it implicates serious manufacturing problems. In fact, ceramic tiles are not easily cut because of their 30 typical hardness. This is the reason why in literature reference is always made to ceramic carbides the mechanical manufacturing necessity or to the complex forming processes and always regarding ceramic carbides.

WO 2012/081023 PCT/IL20111/050061 3 Since market constantly requires strong, low-cost and easily realized armors with high multi-hit properties, it is evident the need to develop ceramic monolithic tiles that do not involve a complex mosaic structure, capable of overcoming the manufacturing problems relevant to the realization to the slots described before. 5 Summary of the Invention There is provided in accordance with the presently disclosed subject matter a monolithic tile made, for example, of a ceramic material, for use in a composite armor, having cut-out and/or through thickness channels spaced from each other at a distance greater than the 10 dimension of the channels, in a plan view of the tile. Brief description of figures: Fig. 1 (a - b) show a schematic representation of a ceramic tile according to this invention and a perpendicular section respectively; Fig. 2 (a - c) show details of channels realization in section; 15 Fig. 3 (a - e) show different realizations of the invention in which channels are disposed according to various geometries; and Fig. 4 (a - e) show in more detail designs which tiles shown in Fig. 3 can have. Detailed Description of the Invention: 20 It has been surprisingly noted that ceramic tiles with penetrating cylindrical channels distributed in various ways, are extremely suitable for manufacturing ceramic armors, avoiding the before mentioned production drawbacks, and offer unexpected advantages in comparison with the analogous tiles with slots, as described here below. As appears from Fig.1 ceramic tiles for armors according to the invention are standard 25 tiles (10) with channels (11) joining the opposite front and rear surfaces of the tile. These surfaces can be planar as shown, or at least the front surface can have domed projections (not shown), disposed between the channels. Tiles can have smooth and continuous borders or they can present (12) cavities represented by part of the channels (11) (preferably an half of total number as shown in 30 Fig. 1).

WO 2012/081023 PCT/IL20111/050061 4 Channels can be simple holes or hollow tubes placed in the body of the tile, constituting an open channel on both opposite surfaces. Channels can have circular or polygonal section (for example, square, hexagonal, triangular, pentagonal) and can be perpendicularly disposed or inclined across the tiles 5 surfaces. Preferably, channels internal dimensions should be between 0,5 and 5 mm. In addition, if necessary, channels could have a rectangular (Fig.1 - a), conic or biconic inner section, or be tapered off at one or the other or both ends (Fig.2 a - c). The presence of channels according to this invention considerably increases the multi-hit 10 resistance, because shock waves propagation through the tile is stopped thanks to these diffraction lines inside the material itself. One of the most common causes of the collapse of ceramic components is the propagation of shock waves created by the impact of projectile against the armor. It is known in literature that the attenuation of the shock waves inside the ceramic parts 15 considerably improves the ceramic armor ballistic performance. Such mitigation is usually obtained by introducing longitudinal discontinuities (US4.704.943 and US20090136702). While, in this invention discontinuities involve the whole thickness of tiles uniformly distributed on the surface. This characteristic sensibly increases the above mitigation power. 20 In addition, the internal volume of the channels could be streamlined with materials that have an acoustic impendence, as for example alumina, zirconia, boron carbide or silicon carbide, silicon nitride, silica or mixture thereof, metals as copper, iron, steel and wolfram, different from the ceramic one, such as plastic materials (low acoustic impendence) or metallic/ceramic materials (high acoustic impendence) . In so doing, it is possible to 25 modulate the mitigation power of the shock waves according to the different threats to be arrested. In fact, because of their different impact velocity, they create wave trains different for frequency and intensity. A further advantage of this invention is the weight reduction obtained by the presence of channels. This characteristic is very important because ballistic armors always represent a 30 parasitic weight. This invention involves tiles commonly made of ceramic materials such as: aluminum oxide, boron carbide, silicon carbide, glass ceramic materials, titanium diboride, or their mixtures and other similar products. They are manufactured following well known processes (using moulds or by extrusion).

WO 2012/081023 PCT/IL20111/050061 5 In the same way, the channels related to this invention are easily realized, by casting, extrusion or by cold pressing using moulds with punch matrixes. These are the most common forming techniques used for mass production. Possible streamline can be easily conducted during the manufacturing process of the 5 ballistic panel or as an intermediate phase after the ceramic tile production, while filling of channels can be made successively, after the monolithic tile production and can obtained by fusion of plastic, metal or vitreous materials. In case of ceramic materials, channels can be filled with powder that is sintered with an additional thermal treatment. 10 A further producing system consists of the co-shaping of two ceramic powders or a ceramic and metal one. Recently, systems of co-injection of different ceramic materials have been set up, in order to obtain composite ceramic products. Again, another manufacturing system consists of the filling of a mould with two powders, that are the matrix and the channels, with the second one placed upright resembling 15 channels shape. Multiple components proportioning systems are well known and used in many technical ceramics applications. It is important to note that tiles with channels are sensibly more homogeneous compared to the tiles with slots described in the state of the art. In fact, channels create 2-10 mm discontinuities (channels diameter 1 mm, at a distance of 2 mm from each other) while 20 slots create discontinuities of 20-50 mm. A higher discontinuity density heightens the effects and improves the capacity of arresting of the fracture propagation. The presence of channels permits the mechanical connection of the two parts of the ballistic inserts making the whole structure more strong and firm. While, there is no possibility to reach this purpose with tiles with slots, because such slots should not have a 25 diameter of more than 0,5 mm. The high discontinuity density enhances the multi-hit power, in fact near to the impact point there will always be conjunction points between the two parts of the composite panel ( front and rear). This increases the ceramic confinement. It is well known in literature that the ceramic confinement improves the multi-hit characteristics. 30 The ceramic fragments produced in the impact will be better hold together and confined thanks to the high density of the connections. Channels can be distributed in the ceramic body of the tiles in a casual way or according to repeated geometric drawings, such as: parallel lines equidistant or at different distances from each other. The size of the channels and their distribution can be such that maximal WO 2012/081023 PCT/IL20111/050061 6 dimension of each channel is less than spacing between the closest points of each two adjacent channels. Channels can be disposed in squares, hexagons, starlike shape etc. as schematically shown in Fig.3. This is better illustrated in Fig. 4, where it is shown that imaginary lines 5 connecting centers of the channels can form polygons whose size is defined by a diameter D of an imaginary circled inscribed therein. Each channel can thus be defined by a circle of a diameter d, in which it is inscribed, the diameter d not exceeding 0.5D, and more particularly not exceeding 0.3D. As shown in Fig. 4d, corners of the channels in the tiles can be rounded, to reduce stress 10 concentration at these corners during the manufacturing of the tiles. As also shown in this Figure, when the channels are triangular, their sides can have the form of concave arcs so that the arcs of six channels, facing each other form parts of the imaginary circle of the diameter D. 15

Claims (12)

1. A tile for use in an armor, comprising channels passing along the tile's thickness and distributed so that, in a plan view of the tile, a maximal dimension of each channel is smaller than a distance between the closest points of each pair of 5 adjacent channels.

2. A tile according to claim 1, wherein the channels are arranged so that, in a plan view of the tile, at least a part of imaginary lines connecting centres of the channels, form polygons. 10

3. A tile according to Claim 2, wherein in said view, each of said polygons is defined by a large inscribed circle having a diameter D and each channel is defined by a small circle of a diameter d, in which it is inscribed, the diameter d not exceeding 0.5D, and more particularly not exceeding 0.3D. 15

4. A tile according to Claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein said channels have a polygonal cross section.

5. A tile according to Claim 5, wherein said channels have a triangular cross-section. 20

6. A tile according to Claim 4 or 5, wherein corners of said channels are rounded.

7. A tile according to Claim 6, wherein in the plan view of the tile, the triangular channels have sided in the form of concave arcs. 25

8. A tile according to Claim 7, wherein the arcs of six channels, facing each other form parts of said large imaginary circle.

9. A tile according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said channels are 30 perpendicular to the tile front and rear surfaces or are inclined in their respect.

10. A tile according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the internal surface of the channels includes materials having acoustic impedance different from that of the ceramic matrix. 35 11. A tile according to any one of the preceding claims, made of a ceramic material. WO 2012/081023 PCT/IL2011/050061 8

12. A tile according to Claim 11, wherein said material is any one of the following: aluminium oxide, boron carbide, silicon carbide, glass-ceramics, titanium diboride or other similar products or their mixture. 5 13. . Process for the manufacture of a tile according to any one of Claims 1 to 12, wherein the channels are obtained by cold pressing in moulds or by extrusions.

14. . Armor comprising ceramic tiles according to any one of Claims 1 to 12.