Influences of ceramic constraint on protection performances of ceramic-metal hybrid structures under impact loads.

• Four ceramic-metal hybrid structures were fabricated and researched. • Influences of ceramic size, boundary constraints and connection mode of the substructures were researched. • Effects of constraints on the influences of penetration position on the performance were studied. • Hybrid structure exhibit much better performance than TC4 plate of equal areal density. Ceramic-metal hybrid structures have drawn extensive attentions as a protective structure for their excellent protection performances to defend penetration. In the present investigation, four hybrid structures were experimentally and numerically studied to determine the influences of the constraints on ceramic on their anti-penetration performances. It was found that the penetration resistances of the hybrid structures were significantly affected by the size of ceramic, boundary constraint and connection mode of the substructures. Both suitable boundary condition and appropriate connection mode of the substructures could provide relatively strong constraints to the ceramic prisms to improve the performance, yet the connection mode of substructures affected the performance more significantly. However, the penetration resistance of the structure with ceramic tile was slightly affected by the boundary condition and connection mode of the substructures. In addition, all of four hybrid structures exhibited much better anti-penetration performances than that of monolithic TC4 plate with the equal areal density. The better performances of the hybrid structures with monolithic frame suggest that suitable frames can provide strong constraints on ceramic prisms, and thus can be potentially used to defend penetrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]