Ceramic Tank Armour

Ceramic armor is armor used by armored vehicles and in personal armor for its attenuative properties.

Ceramic tank armour. Most ceramic composite body armor plates cannot withstand multiple hits to the same area. Ceramics are known to be some of the of the hardest materials and unlike materials such as kevlar which uses its fibers to catch the bullet ceramics break the bullet. In hard armor with ceramic inserts the kinetic energy of the projectile is absorbed and dissipated in localized shattering of this ceramic tile and blunting of the bullet material during its impact on the hard ceramic. Ceramics offer an advantage over steel in weight reduction and over all metals in impact energy absorption.

The ceramic material can absorb a lot of heat as well as heavy physical blows. Chobham armour is the informal name of a composite armour developed in the 1960s at the british tank research centre on chobham common surrey. The strongest and lightest ceramic is boron carbide. Ceramic composite armor plates are placed in body armor plate carriers and worn to protect against bullets projectiles fragmentation shrapnel and stab threats.

The name has since become the common generic term for composite ceramic vehicle armour. Heat and sabot rounds may make it through the outer layer of the armor but they won t make it all the way into the crew compartment. Ceramic material shatters as the heat round penetrates the highly energetic fragments destroying the geometry of the metal jet generated by the hollow shaped charge greatly diminishing the. Composite armor plates are lighter thicker and more flexible than steel plates.

Ceramic armor can be used to protect vehicles as well as individual personnel and dates back to 1918. Ceramic armor is armor used by armored vehicles and in personal armor to resist projectile penetration through high hardness and compressive strength. Thus it is necessary that the ceramic material presents high elastic modulus and high hardness 2. The core armor is a variation on the british chobham armor an arrangement of metal plates ceramic blocks and open space.

The most common ceramic materials used for armor applications are alumina boron carbide silicon carbide and titanium diboride. A relatively famous form of composite armor is so called chobham armor that sandwiches a layer of ceramic between two plates of steel armor and is used on main battle tanks such as the abrams.