International Journal of Impact Engineering 125 (2019) 143–162

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International Journal of Impact Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijimpeng

Ceramic balls protected ultra-high performance concrete structure against T

projectile impact–A numerical study
⁎ ⁎
Jian Liu , Chengqing Wu , Jun Li, Jianguang Fang, Yu Su, Ruizhe Shao
Centre for Built Infrastructure Research, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Ceramic materials have excellent mechanical properties such as light weight, great hardness and high com-
Ceramic balls pressive strength. In this paper, a numerical study is conducted to investigate the response of ceramic balls
UHPC protected ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) targets against the high-velocity rigid projectile impact using
SPH-FE method the coupled smoothed particle hydrodynamics-finite element (SPH-FE) method in LS-DYNA. Based on the va-
Projectile impact
lidated numerical models, parametric studies are performed to explore the effect of diameter, spatial arrange-
ment and material type of ceramic balls as well as the impact position on the dynamic performance of UHPC
targets, and then perforation and ballistic limits of ceramic balls protected UHPC targets are obtained. Compared
with other UHPC slabs at the striking velocities from 500 m/s to 850 m/s, UHPC slabs protected with 6-layer hex-
pack arranged ceramic balls with the diameter of 20 mm is most effective in terms of reducing the depth of
penetration (DOP). In addition, the utilization of ceramic balls is economical in protective structures since the
damaged ceramic balls can be replaced and undamaged ceramic balls are reusable.

1. Introduction
In conventional protective design, concrete is one of the most ex-
tensively used materials to resist impact loadings caused by projectiles.
In recent years, resulted from the increasingly growing demand for
advanced concrete materials with an ultra-high strength and an ex-
cellent toughness, ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) has been
developed [1–3] and its behaviour against the high-velocity projectile
impact was tested [4–8]. Although UHPC has been a promising material
in terms of the impact resistance which can be directly used in the
structural components in civil and military constructions, optimal
structural designs with different reinforcement configurations are under
extensive investigation to maximize the impact resistance of UHPC
components.
The outstanding mechanical properties of ceramic panels such as
light weight, great hardness and high compressive strength are widely
exploited as the reinforcement or shielding for the metal structures
[9–12] or concrete structures [13] to resist projectile impact. However,
some disadvantages may limit its use in ballistic design when the ex-
pensive panel is penetrated or perforated by the projectile even in a
small area and the whole panel becomes non-repairable and requires
complete replacement. Therefore, a novel protective structure with the
reusable and economical properties is necessary to be developed.
Finite element (FE) method has been widely adopted to analyse the
solid mechanics, but it is not capable of handling large distortions of
elements when subjected to extreme loading conditions, which may
lead to computational overflow or inaccurate predictions. In order to
avoid computational overflow caused by element distortions, “erosion
algorithm” is often used to delete elements that experience large dis-
tortions. However, the deletion of elements breaches the conservation
of mass and momentum and fails to obtain the debris information.
In order to overcome these shortcomings caused by FE method,
various mesh-free approaches such as smoothed particle hydro-
dynamics (SPH) [14,15], element free Galerkin (EFG) [16], etc. have
been developed in recent years and summarized in Refs [17–19]. These
standard mesh-free methods have been successfully improved and used
in failure and fragmentation of brittle materials under dynamic load-
ings by researchers. For example, Rabczuk and Eibl [20,21] used SPH
and modified moving least square SPH methods to simulate dynamic
behaviours of concrete under blast and impact loadings. Rabczuk and
Belytschko [22,23] also developed a robust and efficient cracking
particle method with the EFG concepts to model discrete cracks of
concrete under dynamic loadings, where this method is based on a
Lagrangian kernel and it can eliminate artificial fracture caused by
tensile instabilities [24]. However, the Lagrangian kernel is not effec-
tive in large deformation problems. Based on the cracking particle

⁎
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: Jian.Liu-4@student.uts.edu.au (J. Liu), chengqing.wu@uts.edu.au (C. Wu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2018.11.006
Received 11 June 2018; Received in revised form 7 November 2018; Accepted 16 November 2018
Available online 20 November 2018
0734-743X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Liu et al. International Journal of Impact Engineering 125 (2019) 143–162

method, Rabczuk and his co-workers proposed a new method based on is defined and the gradient of a function is given by:
a mixed Lagrangian–Eulerian kernel formulation [23] as well as other
∇f (x ) = ∇f (x ) − f (x ) ∇1(x ) (4)
approaches [25,26] for treating crack growth to simulate concrete
fracture and fragmentation under blast and impact loadings. More re- where 1 is the unit function.
cently, dual-horizon peridynamics [27,28] in mesh-free methods were Combining Eqs. (1) and (4), the particle approximation to the
proposed and used in crack modelling to avoid erratic crack paths. gradient of a function can be redefined as:
Mesh-free approaches have shown wide applications and excellent
N
performance as mentioned above. However, besides the tensile in- mj
Πh∇f (x i ) = ∑ ρj
[f (x j) Aij − f (x i ) Aji ]
stabilities, there still have some other limitations such as higher com- j=1 (5)
putational cost than traditional FE methods and boundary condition
problems to hinder their achievements in dynamic problems. Therefore,
hybrid FE and mesh-free methods were developed to make full use of
where Aij =
1
hd + 1
θ′ ( xi − xj
h )
Several forms of discrete conservation equations can be derived. In
the good properties of both methods. An overall review of several order to accept the conservative equations in the SPH method in nu-
methods for coupling mesh-free particle methods especially the EFG merical simulations, weak forms are used [31–34] to define the con-
method and the SPH method with the FE method can be seen in Ref servations of mass, momentum and energy in solid mechanics. The SPH
[29]. governing equations in terms of conservations of mass, momentum and
In the present study, the impact resistance of thin and thick UHPC energy are respectively given by:
components that equipped with uniformly distributed ceramic balls as a
N
shielding structure is investigated against the rigid projectile impact at dρ
dt
(x i ) = ∑ mj [v (x j) − v (x i)] Aij
velocities between 500 m/s and 800 m/s. The discrete ceramic balls can j=1 (6)
be replaced after damage which makes the shielding structure reusable
after impact. Another advantage of ceramic balls is that the impact N α, β σ jα, β (x j)
dv α ⎡ σi (x i ) ⎤
surface of ceramic balls is cambered so the ceramic balls could provide (x i ) = ∑ mj ⎢ Aij − Aji ⎥
dt ρi2 ρj2
the asymmetric resistance force against the projectile impact and hence j=1 ⎣ ⎦ (7)
changes the ballistic trajectory. The SPH-FE method is used with the
N
assistance of LS-DYNA to conduct the simulations of high-velocity dE ρ
(x i ) = − 2i ∑ mj [v (x j) − v (x i)] Aij
projectile impacts. A parametric study is conducted on thin UHPC slabs dt ρi j=1 (8)
to investigate the influence of impact location, diameter, spatial ar-
rangement and material properties of ceramic balls, and then perfora- where mi, ρi, σiα, β
and v(xi) are mass, density, stress tensor and velocity
tion and ballistic limits of ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slabs are associated with particle i; α and β are the space indices.
obtained. Furthermore, the depth of penetration (DOP) values of thick The Monaghan type artificial viscosity [35] is used to smooth the
UHPC slabs protected with 6-layer ceramic balls with the diameter of shock and to prevent the penetration of adjacent particles. To consider
20 mm in a hex-pack arrangement are obtained at three striking velo- the artificial viscosity, an artificial viscous pressure term Πi, j is added to
cities of 550 m/s, 675 m/s and 800 m/s, and then compared with other the momentum conversation. The equation to represent Πi, j is given by:
UHPC slabs from the previous tests [4,7,8,30].
1 ⎛
Πi, j = ¯i, j + βμi,2 j⎞⎟
⎜ − αμ i, j c

2. Numerical modelling ρ¯ i, j ⎝ ⎠ (9)

where c is the speed of sound and μi, j is defined by:
2.1. SPH formulation
vi,j ri,j
⎧ h i,j vi,j ri,j < 0
In the SPH method [31], the location of the particle xi (i ∈ {1…N} ) μi,j ri,j2 + η2
moves along the velocity field v, and the particle approximation of a ⎨
0 vi,j ri,j > 0 (10)
⎩
function can be rewritten as:
N
where vi,j = vi − vj and η2 = 0.01h¯ 2i,j.
In the SPH method, tensile instability is a major defect in solid
Πhf (x i ) = ∑ wj f (x i) W (x i − x j, h)
j=1 (1) dynamics [36] that may lead to the unreal fracture and cracks of brittle
materials. Although a large number of efforts have been to eliminate
where wj is the weight of the particle varying proportionally to the the tensile instability in recent years, such as smoothing kernel func-
divergence of the flow and h is the smoothing length varying in time tions [23,24], artificial stress [37] and stress point [38], etc., few of
and space. them have been implemented in LS-DYNA version 971.
The Eulerian kernel function W in Eq. (1) is defined regarding the
function θ by: 2.2. Constitutive models of materials
1
W (x , h) = θ (x )
h (x )d (2) LS-DYNA provides a number of concrete models such as Concrete
Damage Rel3 (Mat_72 Rel3) [4,30,39], Riedal Hiermaier Thomas
where d is the space dimension.
(Mat_272) [40–42], Winfrith Concrete (Mat_84) [43] and Johnson
W(x, h) should be a centrally peaked function, and the most
Holmquist Concrete (Mat_111) [44–48] to successfully describe the
common smoothing kernel function in SPH is the cubic B-spline and it is
impact behaviour of UHPC or reactive powder concrete (RPC) targets.
defined by θ as:
In the present study, Johnson Holmquist Concrete (Mat_111) model is
2 3 used to model UHPC material. This concrete model mainly consists of
⎧1 − 1.5u + 0.75u u ≤ 1
θ (u) = C × 0.25(2 − u)3 1≤ u ≤2 three parts including yield surface equation, equation of state and da-
⎨ mage model, and it is verified to be effective if the material failure is
⎩ 0 u >2 (3)
controlled by compression. However, this concrete model is not ap-
where C is a constant of normalization dependent on the space di- propriate to simulate the tension-dominated dynamic behaviours in-
mension and u = r / h , in which ris the distance between two particles. volving scabbing and cratering [49]. Through conducting triaxial
A particle approximation for the derivative operator implied in SPH compression tests on high-strength concrete, the strength parameters of

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J. Liu et al.
this concrete model are obtained and then verified based on projectile
impact tests on concrete targets with the compressive strength ranging
from 60 MPa to 157 MPa [46].
As tested in Ref [4], static test results on uniaxial compression tests
indicated the uniaxial compressive strength of the present UHPC ma-
terial (containing 3 Vol-% steel fibres) was 140 MPa, and a flexural
strength of 28.5 MPa was also obtained based on four-point bending
tests. Regarding the uniaxial tensile strength (ft) and the ultimate ten-
sile strain (ɛtu) of the present UHPC material, an inverse evaluation
based on four-point bending tests is conducted according to Japan
Concrete Institute JCI-S-003-2007 [50] as shown in Eqs. (11) and (12).
In this method, the flexural bending test results are transferred to
uniaxial tensile characteristics for the ductile fibre reinforced ce-
mentitious composites and the stress distribution is assumed uniform in
the tensile zone. This method has been successfully adopted in evalu-
ating the uniaxial tensile strength of UHPC material as reported by Li
et al. [51].
ɛtu = ϕu × D × (1 − x nl )
E × ϕu × D × x nl 2
ft =
2 × (1 − x nl )
where x nl = 2cos(θ /3) − 1; θ = arccos(6m* − 1) ; m* = Mmax/E × ϕu ×
B × D3; x nl = x n / D ; ɛtu is the ultimate tensile strain; ϕu is the curvature
at the maximum load expressed by ϕu = 216δ /(23L2) in which δ is the
mid-span deflection and L is the clear span between the supports
(= 300 mm); D is the depth of test specimen (= 100 mm); B is the
width of test specimen (= 100 mm); xn is the distance from compres-
sive edge to neutral axis (mm); E is the modulus of elasticity (N/mm2);
Mmax is the maximum moment = Pmax /2 × L/3 (N × mm); Pmax is the
maximum load at a given point.
Through conducting the four-point bending test [4], the lateral force
displacement curve is obtained as shown in Fig. 1(a), where the mid-
span deflection is 2.6 mm and the maximum load is 95 kN. After sub-
stituting all the parameters into Eqs. (11) and (12), the uniaxial tensile
strength and ultimate tensile strain are 10.4 MPa and 0.022, respec-
tively, as shown in Fig. 1(b). All the updated parameters of Johnson
Holmquist Concrete model based on the previous studies [44,46] for
the present 140 MPa UHPC slabs are listed in Table 1.
Johnson Holmquist Ceramics model (Mat_110), namely, JH-2
model, [52] is adopted in the present study to simulate the brittle be-
haviour of silicon carbide (SiC) and alumina (Al2O3) ceramic balls. This
model is one of the most widely used material models for ceramics
Fig. 1. Tensile characteristics of UHPC in the present study (a) Lateral forced displacement curve (b) Predicted uniaxial tensile stress strain curve.
International Journal of Impact Engineering 125 (2019) 143–162
subjecetd to projectile impacts [12,53,54]. It consists of three parts
including strength, damage and pressure models. The normalized
equivalent stress (von Mises stress) for the strength is expressed by the
following relation:
σ * = σi* − D × (σi* − σf*) (13)
where σi* is the normalized intact equivalent stress; σf* is the normal-
ized fracture stress; D is the damage parameter. The normalized intact
equivalent stress and the normalized fracture stress are derived from:
σi* = A × (P * + T *) N × (1 + C × lnɛ̇*) (14)
σf* = B × (P *) M × (1+C × lnɛ̇*) ≤ SFMAX (15)
where P* is the normalized pressure; T* is the normalized tensile
strength; ɛ̇* is the normalized strain rate; SFMAX is the maximum
fracture strength. These parameters are all normalized by the equiva-
lent stress at the Hugoniot Elastic Limit (HEL); A, B and C are constants
(11) of intact strength, fracture strength and strain rate, respectively. D is the
damage parameter representing the accumulated damage, which is
calculated from:
(12) Δɛ P
D = ∑
ɛ Pf (16)
where ΔɛP is the increment in plastic strain per cycle of integration; ɛ Pf is
the plastic strain to fracture, which is given by:
ɛ Pf = D1 × (P * + T *) D2 (17)
where D1 and D2 are the damage coefficients ranging from 0 to 1. The
hydrostatic pressure for the undamaged material is given by:
P = K1 × μ + K2 × μ2 + K3 × μ3 (18)
where K1 is the bulk modulus; K2 and K3 are the pressure coefficient;
μ = ρ / ρ0 − 1, in which ρ is the current density and ρ0 is the initial
density. The mechanical properties and model parameters for SiC and
Al2O3 ceramic balls from Refs [12,54,55] are listed in Table 2.
The steel case is modelled by Plastic Kinematic model (Mat_3). From
the previous tests [4,6–8,30,56], the abrasion and damage of the steel
ogive-nosed projectiles after impact were negligible, so the same pro-
jectiles adopted in the present study are considered as the rigid body (<
800 m/s impact) for conservative predictions on the results. All the
material parameters for projectile and steel cases are summarized in
Table 3.
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Table 1
Parameters of Johnson Holmquist Concrete model for UHPC material [44,46].
Parameters Magnitude Parameters Magnitude

3
Density (kg/m ) 2500 Crushing pressure, Pcrush (MPa) 47
Sher modulus (GPa) 16.6 Crushing volumetric strain, μcrush 0.0021
Normalized cohesive strength, A 0.3 Locking pressure, Plock (MPa) 800
Normalized pressure hardening, B 1.73 Locking volumetric strain, μlock 0.1
Strain rate coefficient, C 0.007 Damage constant, D1 0.04
Pressure hardening exponent, N 0.79 Damage constant, D2 1
Uniaxial compresive strength (MPa) 140 Pressure constant, K1 (MPa) 8.5E4
Maximum tensile hydrostatic pressure (MPa) 10.4 Pressure constant, K2 (MPa) −1.71E5
Normalized maximum strength, Smax 7 Pressure constant, K3 (MPa) 2.08E5

2.3. Numerical models and configuration Table 3

Material parameters for the steel projectile and case.
In this paper, numerical simulations of projectile impacts of UHPC Material Material model Parameters Magnitude
slabs protected with ceramic balls are performed by the SPH-FE algo-
rithm in LS-DYNA. A rectangular steel case with a shell thickness of Steel projectile case Rigid model Density (kg/m3) 7500
2 mm is filled with ceramic balls and the case is attached to the impact Young's modulus (GPa) 210
Poisson's ratio 0.28
surface of UHPC targets as a front layer. The steel case provides con- Steel case Plastic Kinematic Density (kg/m3) 7800
finement to the ceramic balls and minimizes the ceramic fragmentation model
during impact. The dimensions of the rectangular UHPC slab and steel Young's modulus (GPa) 210
case as well as the numerical model setup are shown in Fig. 2. The Poisson's ratio 0.3
Yield stress (MPa) 400
configuration of ceramic balls is shown in Fig. 3, which includes: (1) 2-
Tangent modulus (GPa) 2.1
layer ceramic balls with a diameter of 60 mm (D60) in a hex-pack ar- Strain rate parameter C 6844/3.91
rangement; 2) 3-layer ceramic balls with a diameter of 40 mm (D40) in (s-1)/P
a hex-pack or a checkerboard arrangement and 3) 6-layer ceramic balls Failure strain 0.12
slab with a diameter of 20 mm (D20) in a hex-pack arrangement. The
scheme and dimensions of the ogive-nosed projectile with a mass of
341.7 g are shown in Fig. 4, in which the thickness to diameter ratio of projectiles. In the current study, in order to explore the influence of
and the Calibre Radius Head (CRH) ratio are 0.14 and 3.0, respectively. impact positions of ceramic balls on the residual velocity and the bal-
The ceramic balls are modelled by the SPH method with a particle listic trajectory of projectiles, three representative impact positions are
size of 2 mm. The SPH domain of a single ceramic ball can be seen in considered as shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 5. The projectile and steel cases are meshed with Lagrangian ele- A summary of the numerical testing matrix for UHPC slabs pro-
ments. Eight-node hexahedron solid elements with the single point in- tected with ceramic balls subjected to projectile impacts is listed in
tegration algorithm are adopted to model the projectile, and Be- Table 8. The table includes striking velocity of projectiles (V0), ar-
lytschko–Tsai shell elements with the dimensions of 2 mm × 2 mm rangement of ceramic balls, material, diameter of ceramic balls (D),
and the thickness of 2 mm are used to build the steel case. A hybrid layers of ceramic balls (N), thickness of ceramic balls part (Tc) thickness
SPH-FE algorithm is employed to model UHPC slabs. As shown in of UHPC slabs (Tu) and impact position (P).
Fig. 2, SPH domain with a particle size of 2 mm is used for the central
part of UHPC slabs that just beneath the projectile impact location 2.4. SPH-FE coupling and contact definitions
while FE method with the solid element size of 2 mm is used for the
remaining slab. LS-DYNA provides various types of contact algorithms involving
Projectiles are launched to normally hit the ceramic balls protected constraint and penalty methods to define the coupling and contact
UHPC slabs at the striking velocities ranging from 500 m/s to 800 m/s. between different parts. Also, it is applicable to link SPH and FE
It shall be noted that the impact surface of ceramic balls is cambered so methods at an interface since both of them are based on the Lagrangian
the different impact positions on ceramic balls could provide the approach. In this paper, the connection between the SPH domain and
asymmetric resistance force and further changes the ballistic trajectory the FE domain for UHPC slabs as shown in Fig. 7 is defined by the
contact algorithm, namely, Tied_Nodes_To_Surface_Constrained_Offset.

Table 2
Mechanical properties and parameters in JH-2 model for ceramic balls [12, 54, 55].
Mechanical properties of ceramic material

Property SiC Al2O3 Property SiC Al2O3

Young's modulus (GPa) 410 390 Compressive stress (MPa) 3000 2000–2500
Toughness (MPa⋅m1/2 ) 2.8–3.2 3.1–3.4 Vickers hardness (GPa) 26 15.2–15.6

Parameters input in JH-2 model

Parameter SiC Al2O3 Parameter SiC Al2O3

Density (kg/m3) 3180 3860 Intact strength constant, N 0.65 0.243
Shear modulus (GPa) 183 157 Hugoniot elastic limit, HEL (GPa) 14.7 7.0
Hydrostatic tensile limit (MPa) 750 462 Damage coefficient, D1 0.48 0.10
Intact strength constant, A 0.96 0.958 Damage coefficient, D2 0.48 0.70
Fracture strength constant, B 0.35 0.45 Bulk modulus, K1 (GPa) 220 250
Strain rate constant, C 0.0045 0.0076 Pressure coefficient, K2 (GPa) − −274
Fracture strength exponent, M 1.0 0.6 Pressure coefficient, K3 (GPa) − 2394

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This constraint-based approach provides rotational and transitional

degrees of freedom to connect different parts, which smoothly connects
the SPH and FE domain. The penalty-based algorithm defined by Au-
tomatic_Nodes_to_Surface is used to simulate the interaction between
SPH and FE parts. An SPH-FE contact calculation cycle [57] is shown in
Fig. 8. Besides, it is necessary to define the contact between the pro-
jectile and the steel case using Eroding_Surface_to_Surface, in which the
static and dynamic frictional coefficients of 0.3 are used in this case.
The contact types in the numerical simulations are summarized in
Table 4.

3. Validation of numerical models

3.1. High-velocity impact test on thin UHPC slabs

In the test reported in Ref [6], ogive-nosed projectiles with the

striking velocities from 250 m/s to 478 m/s were used to penetrate into
seven thin square ultra-high performance steel fibre (2 Vol-%) re-
inforced concrete (UHP-SFRC) slabs, where the schematic diagram of
tests can be seen in Fig. 9. The dimensions of tested slabs are
400 mm × 400 mm and the nominal thickness ranges from 40 to
97 mm. Prior to the high-velocity projectile impact tests, the uniaxial
compressive strength and the tensile strength of UHP-SFRC slabs at 160
days were obtained [6,58], which were 128.4 MPa and 6.0 MPa, re-
spectively. After perforating the slabs, the residual velocities of pro-
jectiles were captured by the high-speed camera. Table 7 lists the test
plan and results involving slab thickness (H), mass of projectiles (M),
striking velocity of projectiles (V0) and residual velocity of projectiles
(Vr).

3.2. High-velocity impact test on thick UHPC slabs

As shown in Fig. 10, high-velocity impact tests were also performed

on 140 MPa cylindrical UHPC targets reinforced with 3 Vol-% steel fi-
bres. The dimensions of cylindrical UHPC targets were 750 mm in
diameter and 700 mm in thickness. The same projectiles as described in
the test [6] were used to normally penetrate UHPC targets at the impact
velocities of 553 m/s, 683 m/s and 808 m/s. Some important para-
meters such as thickness of UHPC targets (H), mass of projectiles (M),
striking velocity of projectiles (V0) and DOP are listed in Table 7.

3.3. Effects of major parameters

In the SPH method, some major parameters involving SPH domain

size, SPH particle distance, SPH particle approximation theory,
smoothing length constant (CSLH), as well as the sensitivity of material
parameters, may affect the numerical results [33,34,59,60]. In this
section, high-velocity projectile impact simulations are conducted to
determine these parameters. The numerical results such as Vr and DOP
are respectively compared with two typical cases of Test 1–1 and Test
2–1 from Table 7, which are shown in Table 5. The “Error” in the table
means the relative deviations of numerical results compared with tests.

3.3.1. Effect of SPH domain size

Fig. 2. Numerical setup (a) 50 mm thick UHPC slabs with D20 mm ceramic
balls (b) 50 mm thick UHPC slabs with D40 ceramic balls (c) 50 mm thick UHPC
slabs with D60 ceramic balls (d) 350 mm thick UHPC slabs with D20 ceramic
balls.
The determination of SPH domain size is essential to reduce com-
putational cost but maintain the accuracy of numerical results. The SPH
domain size is governed by the deformation region after projectile
impact. As reported in Refs [4,6], the crater diameter of UHPC targets
ranged from 3 to 7 times the ogive-nosed projectile diameter. In this
study, a parametric study is conducted on three different sizes of SPH
domain, i.e. 100 mm × 100 mm, 160 mm × 160 mm and
240 mm × 240 mm, to investigate its effect on both Vr and DOP. A
comparison of both Vr and DOP obtained from various SPH domains
with the test results is shown in Fig. 11(a), where it shows that the SPH
domain size has a slight effect on the numerical results when it is larger
than 100 mm × 100 mm. By considering the maximum deformation

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Fig. 3. Configurations of ceramic balls (a) Hex-pack, D60, 2 layers (b) Checkerboard, D40, 3 layers (c) Hex-pack, D40, 3 layers (d) Hex-pack, D20, 6 layers.

region of UHPC targets after impact, the choice of 160 mm × 160 mm
SPH domain size is reasonable in the current study. It shall be noted
that the larger diameter of ceramic balls may lead to the deviation of
ballistic trajectory, e.g. D60 ceramic balls as shown in Fig. 2(c), a larger
SPH domain size of 230 mm × 230 mm for the UHPC slab is chosen
herein.
3.3.2. Effect of SPH particle distance
SPH particle distance is another important factor that influences
both computational efficiency and accuracy. Apparently, an increase of
SPH particle distance improves computational efficiency but decreases
the accuracy of numerical results. Structured and unstructured particle
arrangements were compared as reported in Ref [26], where the results
indicated the unstructured discretization almost coincided with the

Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of the ogive-nosed projectile.

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J. Liu et al.
Fig. 5. Single ceramic ball (a) D60 (b) D40 (c) D20.
Fig. 6. Impact positions of ceramic balls.
Fig. 7. Coupled SPH particles and Lagrangian solid elements for UHPC slabs.
structured discretization and the structured discretization yielded more
accurate results in most cases. Therefore, it is generally recommended
to model SPH particles with a constant distance in all directions and this
statement can be also found in Ref [61]. In order to find the most
suitable particle distance in numerical simulations, the influence of
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International Journal of Impact Engineering 125 (2019) 143–162
three different SPH particle distances such as 1 mm, 2 mm and 4 mm on
both Vr and DOP is discussed as shown in Fig. 11(b). From this figure,
SPH particle distances of 1 mm and 2 mm almost yield the same nu-
merical results that are very close to the test results while the SPH
particle distance of 4 mm significantly differs from other two scenarios.
Therefore, the SPH particle distance of 2 mm is adopted after con-
sidering the balance of the model accuracy and efficiency.
3.3.3. Effect of SPH particle approximation theory (FORM)
Various SPH particle approximation theories determine different
descriptions of momentum conservation. There are four recommended
non-fluid SPH particle approximation theories In LS-DYNA, such as two
Eulerian formulations, i.e. default formulation (FORM = 0) and re-
normalization approximation (FORM = 1) and two Lagrangian for-
mulations, i.e. total Lagrangian formulation (FORM = 7) and total
Lagrangian formulation with renormalization (FORM = 8) to be se-
lected based on some guidelines [62]. Both FORM = 0 and FORM = 1
are recommended to endure large deformation problems like high-ve-
locity impact. However, FORM = 0 may undergo tensile instability is-
sues and FORM = 1 is more accurate to simulate the dynamic beha-
viours around the boundary areas in terms of most solid structures. SPH
formulations with the Lagrangian kernel (FORM = 7 and 8) can be
adopted to avoid tensile instability issue whereas they can not solve the
problems with large deformations. Therefore, appropriate FORM para-
meter should be carefully picked up for special applications. In this
study, four SPH particle approximation theories (FORM = 0, 1, 7 and 8)
are compared to predict Vr and DOP of UHPC targets and the results can
be seen in Table 5. From this table, FORM = 7 and FORM = 8 cause the
error termination of analysis at the early stage. This is probably because
the neighbours’ list remains constant during the calculation although
the Lagrangian kernel can overpass the tensile instability [63]. The
comparison between the Eulerian kernel with or without renormaliza-
tion approximation is shown in Fig. 11(c), in which FORM = 0 shows a
better accuracy in terms of both Vr and DOP of UHPC targets than
FORM = 1. Besides, FORM = 0 is more efficient in computation than
FORM = 1.
3.3.4. Effect of smooth length constant (CSLH)
Smoothing length also plays an important role in affecting the ac-
curacy of solutions and the efficiency of computations. The CSLH
parameter is a constant to define the smoothing length in LS-DYNA and
its values ranging from 1.05 to 1.3 are recommended for most scenarios
[62]. For the higher values, more computational cost is required as
more neighbour particles correspond to each other [60]. A parametric
study is performed to explore the effect of CSLH parameters on the
numerical results as shown in Fig. 11(d). Although the values of 1.2
and 1.3 have a better accuracy of the numerical results in the case of
Test 1–1 and Test 2–1 than the value 1.05, any value between 1.05 and
1.3 is acceptable for a preliminary trial. In this paper, a default value of
1.2 is set for all cases.
J. Liu et al. International Journal of Impact Engineering 125 (2019) 143–162

Fig. 8. SPH-FE contact calculation cycle [57].

Table 4
Contact type for each part.
Contact type Master part Slave part

Automatic_Nodes_to_Surface Steel case Ceramic balls

Automatic_Nodes_to_Surface Steel case UHPC (SPH domain)
Automatic_Surface_to_Surface Steel case UHPC (FE domain)
Automatic_Eroding_to_Surface Projectile Ceramic balls
Automatic_Eroding_to_Surface Projectile UHPC (SPH domain)
Eroding_Surface_to_Surface Projectile Steel case
Tied_Nodes_To_Surface_Constrained_Offset UHPC (FE domain) UHPC (SPH domain)

Fig. 9. Schematic diagram of high-velocity impact test on thin UHPC slabs [6].
3.3.5. Effect of the sensitivity of material parameters
Besides the major numerical parameters in the SPH method as dis-
cussed above, there are numerous input parameters of material models
and not all of them are “physical”. It is necessary to discuss their sen-
sitivity on the numerical results. Vu-Bac et al. [64] introduced a set of
Matlab functions to analyse the probabilistic sensitivity of uncertain
input material parameters on model outputs. Hamdia et al. [65] used a
methodology for stochastic modelling of the fracture in polymer/
Fig. 10. Setup of high-velocity impact test on thick UHPC slabs [4].
particle nano-composites based on six uncertain parameters. Zhu et al.
[59] discussed the sensitivity of 7 parameters in the ceramic material
model (JH-2) which are not “physical” on numerical results, in which it
was indicated that N had the greatest influence while B and M had the
smallest influence.
In the present study, the similar method as the Ref [59] is used to
investigate the sensitivity of 7 parameters which are not “physical” in
Johnson Holmquist Concrete model for UHPC material, i.e. A, B, C, N,
Smax, D1 and D2. In addition to the initial value for each parameter, four

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Table 5
Comparison of numerical results for different parameters.
Variable Amount of particles Vr(m/s) in Test 1–1 Error DOP (mm) in Test 2–1 Error

SPH domain size (mm × mm) 100 × 100 62,500 166 −2.9% 127 −1.6%
160 × 160 160,000 167 −2.3% 128 −0.8%
240 × 240 360,000 167 −2.3% 128 −0.8%
SPH particle distance (mm) 1 640,000 166 −2.3% 128 −0.8%
2 160,000 167 −2.3% 128 −0.8%
4 40,000 190 +11.1% 243 +88.4%
FORM parameter 0 160,000 167 −2.3% 128 −0.8%
1 160,000 158 −7.6% 127 −1.6%
7 160,000 Error termination − Error termination −
8 160,000 Error termination − Error termination −
CSLH parameter 1.05 160,000 162 −5.3% 121 −6.2%
1.2 160,000 167 −2.3% 128 −0.8%
1.3 160,000 170 −0.6% 131 +1.6%

values including 5% less, 3% less, 3% more and 5% more than the in-
itial value are set to calculate their corresponding outputs and the re-
lative change with respect to the output of the initial value. By fitting
these 5 points with a linear equation, the slope can be obtained through
dividing the relative change of the output value by the relative change
of the input value to evaluate the sensitivity of certain input para-
meters.
The sensitivity of 7 material parameters in terms of numerical
projectile impacts in Test 1–1 and Test 2–1 is given in Table 6. The
negative slope means that the increase of the input parameter decreases
the result, and the positive slope means that the increase of the input
parameter increases the result. From this table, B has the greatest
influence on Vr and D1 has the smallest influence on Vr. B has the
greatest influence on DOP and D2 has the smallest influence on DOP.
3.3.6. Determination of other parameters
For the remaining numerical parameters of the SPH method in LS-
DYNA, such as scale factor for the smooth length (Hmin and Hmax),
number of cycles between particle sorting (NCBS), interaction of par-
ticles (CONT) and neighbour particles search (INI), they all are con-
sidered as default values.

Fig. 11. Influence of major parameters (a) SPH domain size (b) SPH particle size (c) SPH particle approximation theory (d) smooth length constant.

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Table 6
Sensitivity of material parameters of UHPC on Vr in Test 1–1 and DOP in Test 2–1.
A B C N Smax D1 D2

Test 1–1, Slope 1 = ΔVr /ΔInput −0.233 −0.745 0.209 0.325 −0.092 0.033 −0.185
Test 2–1, Slope 2 = ΔDOP/ΔInput −0.073 −0.535 −0.021 0.155 −0.123 0.013 −0.009

Fig. 12. Numerical and experimental projectile impact process with fragmentation (a) 70 mm thick UHPC slab, 348 m/s (Test 1–6) [6] (b) 700 mm thick UHPC
target, 808 m/s (Test 2–3) [4].

3.4. Model comparison with experimental results penetration results.

Once determining essential numerical parameters by using two ty-

pical cases of tests for validation, they are adopted in the numerical
simulations for the remaining cases of tests. Fig. 12 shows the typical
numerical and experimental investigations of projectile impact process
with fragmentation for thin and thick UHPC targets (Test 1–6 and Test
2–3). The comparison of experimental and numerical results regarding
Vr and DOP are shown in Table 7 and Fig. 13, where the numerical
results yield fair agreement with tests and the deviations in all cases are
in a reasonable range which is lower than ± 15%. There are some
factors that may lead to the inconsistency between numerical and ex-
perimental results. Firstly, in real tests, the initial impact between
projectile and target is not strictly normal, and this angle is extremely
difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce in the numerical trials. Sec-
ondly, the mechanical properties for each concrete target vary in real
tests, but steel fibre reinforced concrete is considered a homogeneous
material in numerical simulations. However, it is hard to guarantee the
uniform distribution and random orientation of steel fibres within
concrete during the manual mixing process when producing specimens.
In addition, the mass difference of projectiles and the numerical para-
meters could also lead to the inaccurate prediction of the projectile
4. Numerical results and discussions
As summarized in Table 8, totally 35 shots with the striking velo-
cities from 500 m/s to 800 m/s are simulated on ceramic balls protected
UHPC slabs. The resultant residual velocities of projectiles for thin
protected UHPC slabs (Vr), the corresponding components in the per-
pendicular direction to the target (Vr, y) and DOPs for thick protected
UHPC slabs as well as the ballistic deviation angles (α) are obtained. In
this table, “N.P.” denotes the projectile does not perforate the target.
4.1. Perforation of ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slabs
4.1.1. Perforation process and energy history
Taking Test 20 for example, the typical projectile perforation his-
tory into UHPC slab protected with 6-layer D40 ceramic balls in the
hex-pack arrangement at 800 m/s is shown in Fig. 14, in which the
projectile perforates the 3rd layer of ceramic balls and UHPC slab at
160 µs and 270 µs, respectively. Fig. 15 shows the localized damages of
D40 ceramic balls in each layer at 270 µs. The extent of damage is
denoted by the Von-Mises stress and the colour changing from blue to

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Table 7
Comparison of experimental and numerical results.
Tests on thin UHPC slabs [6] Simulation
Test H (mm) M (g) V0 (m/s) Vr (m/s) M′ (g) Vr (m/s) Error

1–1 50 330.4 250 171 341.7 167 −2.3%

1–2 50 331.0 478 425 341.7 425 0
1–3 50 331.0 347 283 341.7 285 +0.7%
1–4 40 330.8 352 305 341.7 309 +1.3%
1–5 60 330.6 341 251 341.7 251 0
1–6 70 331.4 348 233 341.7 233 0
1–7 97 330.5 342 156 341.7 135 −13.5%

Tests on thick UHPC slabs [4] Simulation

Test H (mm) M (g) V0 (m/s) DOP (mm) M′ (g) DOP (mm) Error

2–1 700 329.6 553 129 341.7 128 −0.8%

2–2 700 328.9 683 166 341.7 166 0
2–3 700 329.0 808 208 341.7 206 −1.0%

red means the ceramic balls suffer more severe damages. It is clear that response of the steel case on front and rear surfaces under the same
only a small number of ceramic balls close to the impact region are loading environment when reaching the yielding strength at 270 µs.
damaged with fragments while many ceramic balls far away from the The front surface is subjected to more severe effective stress than the
impact region experience minor damages. Fig. 16 shows the impact rear surface and some stress areas further away from the impact region

Fig. 13. Comparison between experimental and numerical results (a) Residual velocity of projectile versus thickness of slab at ∼350 m/s (b) Residual velocity of
projectile versus striking velocity of projectile for 50 mm thick UHPC slabs (c) DOP versus striking velocity of projectile for thick UHPC slabs.

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Table 8
Numerical results for thin and thick UHPC slabs protected with ceramic balls.
Test V0 (m/s) Arrangement Material D (mm) N Tc (mm) Tu (mm) P Vr (m/s) Vr, y (m/s) α DOP (mm)

1 800 − − − − − 50 − 752 752 − −

2 800 Hex-pack SiC 60 2 113 50 1 504 504 − −
3 800 Hex-pack SiC 60 2 113 50 2 535 535 − −
4 500 Hex-pack SiC 60 2 113 50 3 N.P. N.P. 14° −
5 520 Hex-pack SiC 60 2 113 50 3 99 96 14° −
6 575 Hex-pack SiC 60 2 113 50 3 232 224 15° −
7 650 Hex-pack SiC 60 2 113 50 3 345 331 16° −
8 725 Hex-pack SiC 60 2 113 50 3 438 418 17° −
9 800 Hex-pack SiC 60 2 113 50 3 534 511 17° −
10 800 Hex-pack SiC 60 3 162 50 3 390 370 18° −
11 800 Hex-pack SiC 60 4 211 50 3 194 184 17° −
12 800 Hex-pack SiC 60 5 260 50 3 N.P. N.P. 24° −
13 800 Hex-pack SiC 40 3 109.4 50 1 516 516 − −
14 800 Hex-pack SiC 40 3 109.4 50 2 505 505 − −
15 530 Hex-pack SiC 40 3 109.4 50 3 N.P. N.P. − −
16 550 Hex-pack SiC 40 3 109.4 50 3 70 70 − −
17 575 Hex-pack SiC 40 3 109.4 50 3 153 153 − −
18 650 Hex-pack SiC 40 3 109.4 50 3 314 314 − −
19 725 Hex-pack SiC 40 3 109.4 50 3 431 431 − −
20 800 Hex-pack SiC 40 3 109.4 50 3 524 524 − −
21 800 Hex-pack SiC 40 4 142.1 50 3 395 395 − −
22 800 Hex-pack SiC 40 5 174.8 50 3 135 135 − −
23 800 Hex-pack SiC 40 6 207.5 50 3 N.P. N.P. − −
24 800 Checkerboard SiC 40 3 100.6 50 3 588 580 9° −
25 800 Hex-pack SiC 20 6 106 50 1 359 359 − −
26 800 Hex-pack SiC 20 6 106 50 2 362 362 − −
27 670 Hex-pack SiC 20 6 106 50 3 N.P. N.P. − −
28 690 Hex-pack SiC 20 6 106 50 3 98 98 − −
29 725 Hex-pack SiC 20 6 106 50 3 220 220 − −
30 800 Hex-pack SiC 20 6 106 50 3 369 369 − −
31 800 Hex-pack SiC 20 3 56.8 50 3 631 631 − −
32 800 Hex-pack SiC 20 7 122.4 50 3 225 225 − −
33 800 Hex-pack SiC 20 8 138.8 50 3 N.P. N.P. − −
34 800 Hex-pack Al2O3 20 6 106 50 3 579 579 − −
35 550 Hex-pack SiC 20 6 106 350 1 − − − 83
36 675 Hex-pack SiC 20 6 106 350 1 − − − 125
37 800 Hex-pack SiC 20 6 106 350 1 − − − 189

are caused by the contact force between the ceramic balls and the steel
case, which confirms the movement of ceramic balls after impact is
confined and the flying of ceramic fragments is minimized by the steel
case.
Fig. 17(a) presents the impact resistance provided by the target
acting on the projectile in Test 20, where T1, T2 and T3 corresponds
with the three stages of the perforation process as shown in Fig. 14.
During the projectile perforation of ceramic balls, oscillations in impact
resistance occur because of the gaps among ceramic balls. When the
projectile goes through these gaps, the impact resistance significantly
decreases until the projectile strikes the next ceramic ball. After that,
the impact resistance will start to rise again before the projectile passes
through the next gap. In Fig. 17(a), the area under the impact re-
sistance displacement curve represents the work done by impact re-
sistance of targets. Fig. 17(b) shows the energy evolution during impact
including the kinetic energy of the projectile, the kinetic energy of
ceramic balls, the internal energy of ceramic balls and the internal
energy of the UHPC slab in Test 20. Starting from 109.3 kJ, the initial
kinetic energy of the projectile is partly consumed by the fracture of
ceramic balls and simultaneously transferred to the internal energy of
ceramic balls (31.4 kJ) and then continues to transfer to the internal
energy of the UHPC slab (8.2 kJ). The energy absorbed by ceramic balls
increases more rapidly than the UHPC slab and its internal energy
(31.4 kJ) constitute over 50% of the dissipated kinetic energy (62.3 kJ),
proving ceramic balls are effective in consuming energy subjected to
the projectile impact. During the impact, the total dissipated energy
caused by both fracture and friction is 21.8 kJ, which takes about 20%
of the initial kinetic energy of the projectile. It shall be noted that the
kinetic energy of ceramic balls during impact is small (2.1 kJ) and its
value decreases after 100 µs. These observations further prove the

Fig. 14. Projectile perforation process into D40 ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slab in the hex-pack arrangement at impact position 3 at 800 m/s (Test 20).

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Fig. 15. Localized damages of the hex-pack arrangement of D40 ceramic balls (Test 20) per layer at 800 m/s at 270 µs.

Fig. 16. Impact response of the steel case (Test 20) at 270 µs at 800 m/s (a) Front surface (b) Rear surface.

movement of ceramic balls and ceramic fragments is effectively re- the hex-pack arrangement as shown in Fig. 14. Fig. 19(a) presents the
strained by the steel case. impact resistance displacement curves for these two types of arrange-
ments, e.g. Tests 20 and 24. When the projectile penetrating into
ceramic balls from 0 to 110 µs, the work done by the impact resistance
4.1.2. Effect of arrangement of ceramic balls
of hex-pack arranged ceramic balls is much larger than the checker-
The effect of the arrangement of ceramic balls on the residual ve-
board arrangement, which leads to the reduction of the residual velo-
locity and the ballistic trajectory of the projectile is the top priority to
city of the projectile by 10.9% as shown in Fig. 19(b). This is because
be considered. Fig. 18 shows the projectile perforation into the
the hex-pack arranged ceramic balls have the lower porosity than the
checkerboard arrangement of 3-layer D40 ceramic balls protected on
checkerboard arranged ceramic balls resulted from the configuration
UHPC slabs at impact position 3 at 800 m/s (Test 24). Comparing with
setup as shown in Fig. 3.
Test 20, it is observed that the ballistic trajectory of the projectile
changes more obviously in the checkerboard arrangement than that in

Fig. 17. Impact response of D40 ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slab in the hex-pack arrangement at impact position 3 at 800 m/s (Test 20) (a) Impact resistance
(b) Energy evolution.

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Fig. 18. Projectile perforation into D40 ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slab in the checkerboard arrangement at impact position 3 at 800 m/s (Test 24).

Fig. 19. Impact response of D40 ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slab in various arrangements at impact position 3 at 800 m/s (a) Impact resistance (b) Residual
velocity of projectile.

4.1.3. Comparison between Al2O3 and SiC ceramic balls
Fig. 20 shows the comparison between Al2O3 (Test 34) and SiC
(Test 30) ceramic balls with the diameter of 20 mm protected on UHPC
slabs in terms of the impact resistance and the residual velocity of the
projectile. In this comparison, the projectile strikes the impact position
3 of the ceramic balls at 800 m/s. The SiC ceramic balls protected UHPC
slab does much more work to resist the projectile impact and hence
reduces the residual velocity of the projectile by 36.3% compared with
the Al2O3 ceramic balls protected UHPC slab, proving SiC ceramic balls
have a superior performance in resisting the projectile than Al2O3
ceramic balls. Several studies have been conducted to investigate the
influence of material properties on the ballistic behaviour of ceramics
[11,55,66–71]. Some parameters involving density and porosity, me-
chanical strength, hardness, Young's modulus, fracture toughness and
HEL are of importance in resisting the projectile impact. However, any
single property does not directly have an effect on the ballistic beha-
viour since the fracture mechanics of ceramic materials during impact is
complicated [55]. For example, ceramics should have the high com-
pressive strength, hardness and Young's modulus to resist the projectile
impact [55,68,70], but any increase of the single value only provides

Fig. 20. Comparison between D20 Al2O3 and SiC ceramic balls at impact position 3 at 800 m/s (a) Impact resistance (b) Residual velocity of projectile.

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Fig. 21. Impact response of D60 ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slab at various impact positions at 800 m/s (a) Impact resistance (b) Residual velocity of
projectile.
limited help [67] and crack propagation becomes intensive when the
ceramic hardness is very high [55]. The increase of ceramic toughness
generally reduces the crack propagation, however, ceramic hardness
decreases simultaneously, which means the improved toughness may
have advantages and disadvantage over the anti-penetration process
[55]. On the contrary, some previous reports [69,71] indicated that the
toughened ceramic provides higher ballistic resistance of targets.
Therefore, more careful considerations should be taken to the me-
chanical properties of ceramic materials in its evaluation of the ballistic
performance. In the present study, the effects of ceramic hardness and
compressive strength overweight the material toughness, and SiC
ceramic balls perform better than Al2O3 against the same projectile
penetration.
4.1.4. Effect of impact positions
The effect of impact positions is considered important because the
surface of the ceramic balls is cambered that different impact positions
may induce an asymmetric resistance and deviate the ballistics trajec-
tory of projectiles. Figs. 21–23 respectively show the impact response
of UHPC slabs protected by D60 (Tests 2, 3 and 9), D40 (Tests 13, 14
and 20) and D20 (Tests 25, 26 and 30) ceramic balls under various
impact positions at 800 m/s. Taking D60 ceramic balls for example, as
shown in Fig. 21, although the projectile striking at impact position 2 is
subjected to the largest impact resistance provided by the ceramic balls,
the total work done by ceramic balls is almost the consistent, so the
residual velocities of projectile after perforation are quite close under
these three scenarios. Furthermore, seen from Figs. 22 and 23, the
various impact positions have even less effect on the impact responses
of targets when the diameter is reduced to 40 mm and 20 mm. This is
attributed to the lower void ratio and better compaction for the finer
ceramic balls. Therefore, a conclusion can be drawn that with the re-
duction in ceramic ball size, the influence of the impact location is
reduced. When the diameter of ceramic balls is sufficiently small, the
residual velocity of the projectile is not affected by the impact position.
4.1.5. Effect of diameter of ceramic balls
The effect of the diameter of ceramic balls on its impact response is
analysed in this section. Figs. 24 and 25 respectively show the typical
projectile perforations of UHPC slabs with D20 (Test 30) and D60 (Test
9) ceramic balls in the hex-pack arrangement at impact position 3 at
800 m/s. Compared with the D40 ceramic balls protected UHPC slab,
the ballistic trajectory within the D20 ceramic balls protected UHPC
slab is rarely altered, but the ballistic trajectory within the D60 ceramic
balls protected UHPC slab is significantly deviated and the deviation
angle has an increasing tendency with the increase of the striking
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International Journal of Impact Engineering 125 (2019) 143–162
velocity from 500 m/s to 800 m/s through taking Tests 4–9 for con-
siderations, in which the maximum ballistic deviation angle can reach
17°.
Taking Tests 9, 20 and 30 for considerations, the comparison of
D60, D40 and D20 ceramic balls protected UHPC slabs in terms of the
impact resistance and the residual velocity of the projectile at impact
position 3 at 800 m/s is shown in Fig. 26. Comparing D20 and D40
ceramic balls protected UHPC slabs, it is observed that coarser ceramic
balls contribute less to the impact resistance force and work due to the
lower compaction. Also, the fluctuation of impact resistance during
perforation becomes more evident for the larger diameter ceramic balls.
However, when increasing the diameter to 60 mm, the accumulated
work done by the impact resistance of ceramic balls is quite close to
that of D40 ceramic balls. The residual velocity of the projectile for the
D20 ceramic balls protected target reduces by 29.6% and 30.9% re-
spectively compared with D40 and D60 ceramic balls protected targets.
However, the ballistic trajectory is less altered when the size of the ball
reduces especially when the diameter is smaller than 60 mm. It shall be
noted that the ballistic trajectory deviation will lead to the reduction of
the projectile residual velocity in the perpendicular direction to the
target and the reduction reaches 4.3% compared with the resultant
value in this case.
4.1.6. Perforation and ballistic limits of protected targets
The relations between the residual velocity of the projectile and the
layers of ceramic balls as well as the perforation limit for protected thin
UHPC slabs are investigated as shown in Fig. 27. In this figure, it can be
seen that the safe layers to prevent perforation of D60, D40 and D20
ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slabs are 5, 6 and 8, respectively. In
the case of UHPC slabs protected with 5-layer D60 ceramic balls, the
maximum ballistic deviation angle reaches 24°.
Additionally, a series of numerical simulations at various striking
velocities from 500 m/s to 800 m/s are conducted to investigate the
ballistic limit for D20 (Tests 27–30), D40 (Tests15-20) and D60 (Tests
4–9) ceramic balls protected UHPC slabs. Furthermore, the relations
among the residual kinetic energy, the kinetic energy dissipation and
the initial kinetic energy of projectiles are analysed under such varying
striking velocities as shown in Fig. 28. Through curve-fitting the data as
labelled in the primary horizontal and vertical axis, it is indicated that
there has a linear relationship between the initial and residual kinetic
energies of projectiles after perforation. Based on the equations to re-
present the trendlines, the limit striking velocities to perforate D20,
D40 and D60 ceramic balls protected UHPC slabs are 677 m/s, 541 m/s
and 506 m/s, respectively. The relations between the kinetic energy
dissipation and the initial kinetic energy of projectiles after perforating
J. Liu et al. International Journal of Impact Engineering 125 (2019) 143–162

Fig. 22. Impact response of D40 ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slab at various impact positions at 800 m/s (a) Impact resistance (b) Residual velocity of
projectile.

Fig. 23. Impact response of D20 ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slab at various impact positions at 800 m/s (a) Impact resistance (b) Residual velocity of
projectile.

Fig. 24. Projectile perforation process into D20 ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slab in the hex-pack arrangement at impact position 3 at 800 m/s (Test 30).

are further shown in the secondary horizontal and vertical axis in this of dissipation increases with the larger striking velocity of the pro-
figure. It is fairly clear that the smaller size of ceramic balls will help jectile.
consume the initial kinetic energy of the projectile and the consumption
increases with the increasing striking velocity of the projectile (the
4.2. DOP analysis of ceramic balls protected thick UHPC slabs
mass of the projectile is assumed as constant). The above phenomenon
gives the strong evidence that finer ceramic balls are of better capability
In order to evaluate the performance of ceramic balls as a protecting
in resisting the projectile impact due to its higher compaction especially
structure on the UHPC slabs, DOPs of thick UHPC slabs with 6-layer
when the diameter is 20 mm. Also, the finer ceramic balls are more
D20 ceramic balls in the hex-pack arrangement are investigated at three
effective in dissipating the kinetic energy of the projectile and the value
striking velocities of 550 m/s, 675 m/s and 800 m/s (Tests 35–37). The

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Fig. 25. Projectile perforation process into D60 ceramic balls protected thin UHPC slab in the hex-pack arrangement at impact position 3 at 800 m/s (Test 9).

Fig. 26. Comparison of projectile perforation of thin UHPC slabs protected with D20, D40 and D60 ceramic balls (a) Impact resistance (b) Residual velocity of
projectile.

Fig. 27. Residual velocity of projectile versus layers of ceramic balls at 800 m/
s.
impact responses of the target under such three striking velocities when
the projectiles come to rest are shown in Fig. 29, in which DOPs at
these three scenarios are 83 mm, 125 mm and 189 mm, respectively.
As shown in Fig. 30, the numerical results are compared with other
UHPC slabs as reported in the previous studies, including 100 MPa re-
active powder concrete (RPC) with 44-layer steel wire meshes (RPC-
SWM) [30], 120 MPa UHPC with 3 Vol-% ultra-high molecular weight
polyethylene (UHMWPE) fibres (UHPC-PF) [4], 140 MPa UHPC with 3
Vol-% steel fibres (UHPC-SF) [4], 114 MPa UHPC with 3 Vol-% steel
fibres (UHP-BAFRC-1) [7], 125.2 MPa UHPC with 2 Vol-% steel fibres
Fig. 28. The relations among residual kinetic energy, kinetic energy dissipation
and initial kinetic energy of projectiles.
and 30 Vol-% 5–15 mm basalt aggregates (UHP-BAFRC-2) [7],
110.7 MPa UHPC with 2 Vol-% steel fibres and 30 Vol-% 5–20 mm
corundum aggregates (UHP-CAFRC-1) [8] and 128.8 MPa UHPC with 2
Vol-% steel fibres and 45 Vol-% 5–20 mm corundum aggregates (UHP-
CAFRC-2) [8]. At the striking velocity of 550 m/s, DOP for the ceramic
balls protected UHPC target is 37.1% smaller than the RPC-SWM target
at 539 m/s, 40.7% smaller than the UHPC-PF target at 549 m/s and
35.7% smaller than the UHPC-SF target at 553 m/s. Compared with
other UHPC targets under the lower impact velocity of ∼500 m/s, e.g.
UHP-BAFRC-1, UHP-BAFRC-2, UHP-CAFRC-1, UHP-CAFRC-2, DOP for
the ceramic balls protected UHPC target at 550 m/s decreases in a range

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Fig. 29. Projectile penetration of thick UHPC slabs with 6-layer hex-pack arranged D20 ceramic balls at different striking velocities (a) 550 m/s (b) 675 m/s (c)
800 m/s.
Fig. 30. DOP versus striking velocity of projectile.
from 17% to 34.1%. At the striking velocity of 675 m/s, DOP of the
ceramic balls protected UHPC target respectively decrease by 26%,
47.7% and 24.7% when compared with the RPC-SWM target at 679 m/
s, the UHPC-PF target at 692 m/s and the UHPC-SF target at 683 m/s.
Additionally, despite the impact velocities for these two targets are
different, e.g. the ceramic balls protected UHPC target under 675 m/s,
UHP-CAFRC-1 targets under 708 m/s-722 m/s, the former target has a
smaller value of DOP (decrease by 50%) than the latter one. At the
striking velocity of 800 m/s, although the ceramic balls protected UHPC
target remarkably decrease DOP by 31%, 32% and 26.5% respectively
through comparing with the UHPC-PF target at 806 m/s, UHP-BAFRC-1
and UHP-BAFRC-2 targets at 850 m/s, it has a marginal improvement to
reduce DOP in comparison with the RPC-SWM target at 807 m/s (de-
crease by 6.4%), the UHPC-SF target at 808 m/s (decrease by 9.1%) and
UHP-CAFRC-1 targets at ∼840 m/s (almost the same). It is worth
noting that the deformation and abrasion of projectiles are not con-
sidered in the present study so that conservative numerical results with
larger values of DOP are obtained especially for high-velocity projectile
penetrations. The above observations indicate the superior impact
performance of UHPC slabs with 6-layer D20 ceramic balls in the hex-
pack arrangement than other UHPC structures.
160
International Journal of Impact Engineering 125 (2019) 143–162
5. Conclusions
This paper proposes a new structure of ceramic balls protected on
UHPC slabs to resist the rigid projectile impact. An SPH-FE method is
adopted to simulate the impact process and then a parametric study is
conducted to investigate some variables such as impact position, dia-
meter, arrangement and material type of ceramic balls to affect the
impact performance of thin protected UHPC slabs based on the vali-
dated numerical models. In addition, perforation and ballistic limits of
protected targets are obtained. The impact response of ceramic balls
protected thick UHPC targets is also explored and compared with the
existing advanced UHPC targets from the previous studies [4,7,8,30].
Some conclusions can be drawn from this work:
1) When the rigid projectile strikes the ceramic balls protected UHPC
slabs, only a small number of ceramic balls close to the impact re-
gion are damaged with fragments while the ceramic balls far away
from the impact region seem not to experience such severe brittle
damage, which demonstrates that the utilization of ceramic balls is
economical in protective structures since the undamaged ceramic
balls are reusable;
2) Although the checkerboard arranged ceramic balls protected UHPC
slab tends to change the ballistic trajectory more possibly than the
hex-pack arranged ceramic balls protected UHPC, the latter has the
better impact performance regarding the residual velocity of the
projectile than the former because the hex-pack arrangement has the
lower void ratio;
3) If the diameter of ceramic balls is not much larger than the rigid
projectile diameter, the residual velocity of the projectile is insig-
nificantly affected by the various impact positions and the extent of
the effect will be reduced with the finer ceramic balls;
4) The finer ceramic balls are more effective in the impact resistance
due to the higher compaction. The finer ceramic balls are easier to
consume the kinetic energy of the projectile and the value of the
energy consumption rises with the larger striking velocity of the
projectile. On the contrary, when the diameter of ceramic balls is
much larger than the rigid projectile diameter, the ballistic trajec-
tory is easier to be altered;
5) Ceramic balls contribute significantly to the dissipation of the ki-
netic energy of the projectile. Compared with the existing advanced
UHPC targets, 6-layer D20 ceramic balls in the hex-pack arrange-
ment protected on the thick UHPC slabs can improve the
J. Liu et al.
performance regarding DOP to resist the projectile penetration in
the velocity range within 800 m/s.
Acknowledgements
The ARC Discovery Grant DP160104661 to support the research
presented in this paper is gratefully acknowledged.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2018.11.006.
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