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Deformation and Comminution of Shock Loaded α-Al2O3 in the Mescall Zone of Ceramic Armor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2011

J. T. Mcginn
Affiliation:
David Sarnoff Research Center, CN 5300, Princeton, NJ 08540
R. W. Klopp
Affiliation:
SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park,CA 94025
D. A. Shockey
Affiliation:
SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park,CA 94025
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Abstract

Incursion of high density penetrators into ceramic armor is preceded by the formation of a finely comminuted rubble bed at the penetrator tip, the Mescall zone. The deformation and failure processes that result in the Mescall zone are critical to understanding penetration resistance and to modeling penetration behavior. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to examine shock loaded material in the vicinity of an explosive detonation in α-Al2O3 and to infer the phenomenology of plasticity and fracture occurring at the tip of an advancing penetrator in ceramic armor. Comminution proceeds by intergranular fracture until the fragment size approaches the grain size. Further fragmentation proceeds by transgranular cracks, which nucleate at preexisting microvoids and at intersections of basal twins and primary and secondary slip bands.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1995

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