Fibre reinforced polymer composites have been established as potential materials for making body armours. The present work depicts estimation of ballistic resistance of multilayer ceramic backed fibre reinforced composite target through 3D numerical simulation using Ansys/Autodyn software. The present numerical and material models have been validated against the results available in the literature. After that, the velocity–time history of the projectile is examined for impact velocities ranging between 330 to 1200 m/s. Here, the study has been focused on predicting the progressive damage and failure modes of the ceramic-composites target plate under impact. Also, the variation in residual velocities, time of penetration/perforation with different incident velocities, damage pattern in the deformable projectile and the kinetic energy of the impactor is studied. Finally, the trend of variation of ballistic limit velocity with different masses and diameter of the impactor has also been investigated.

In the present study, finite element analysis were carried out to investigate the ballistic performance of Al2O3-Kevlar 29/epoxy armour system impacted by a 4340 steel projectile. The perforation capacity of a 10 mm thick target was studied against a blunt, ogive, and conical shaped projectile with a fixed diameter and mass of 7.56 mm and 10.7 gm, respectively. The simulations were carried out in Ansys/Autodyn by considering the projectile as a deformable body. The variation of the ballistic limit velocity (BLV) and energy, progressive damage of the target, and projectile deformation were studied comprehensively. It was found that the nose configuration of the projectile significantly influence the target’s ballistic performance. The perforation capacity of the blunt projectile was lower than the ogive and conical shape in all the velocity regimes. At higher impact velocity ( Vi >600 m/s), the target’s resistance was better against the ogive projectile than that of the sharp conical projectile. Interestingly, this phenomenon got reversed when the incident velocity nears the ballistic limit. Also, from the simulation results, it has been possible to obtain the optimum thicknesses of the components for a given total thickness of the armour.