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Abstract.
Ceramic Armor Materials by Design is a collation of papers
that were presented at the Ceramic Armor Materials by Design
Symposium held under the auspices of the American Ceramic Society’s
International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Glass, November 4-8, 2001
in Wailea, Maui Hawaii. Effectively, this book is the symposium
proceedings. Each paper has been edited by a collection of
eminent researchers who are involved in the study of terminal
ballistics.
Because it is simply a collection of scientific papers it
is certainly is not the sort of book that makes
for ideal bed-side reading, neither is it the sort of
book that I would expect to find on many coffee
tables around the world. However, if you are interested in
the development of ceramic armor systems to be used in
the protection of personnel, VIP vehicles, lightweight armored fighting vehicles
and heavy armor then this book should be on your
office bookshelf or, at the very least, in your departmental
library!
The reason the symposium and hence this publication is
outlined in the preface. Essentially the aim was to enhance
the current understanding of what determines the ballistic performance of
a ceramic and to assess the current status of computer
codes and analytical equations used to model penetration into these
materials. The symposium was co-sponsored by the US Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, the US Army Research Office and the
US Army Research Laboratory and therefore it is no surprize
that despite the symposium being international, quite a large proportion
of the content comes from US sources. Nevertheless, this publication’s
usefulness is in its breadth of content and contributory sources—with
authors from academia, private industry and government funded labs not
only in the US but in the UK, Australia, France,
Germany, Sweden, Korea, Japan, the Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey.
The
book is broken down into a number of sections with
each section devoted to specific subject matter within the context
of ceramic armor materials research. The book begins with a
section on ceramic armor development that deals with practical issues
of ceramic armor design and application including two papers on
the development of "space saving" tungsten carbides. The next section
has a collection of papers devoted to the study of
penetration mechanisms and testing of ceramic armor systems and will
prove valuable to any engineer involved in the development of
lightweight armor solutions. The behaviour of some ceramics under high
strain rate loading is detailed by papers in another section
examining dynamic fracture, shock compression and release and dynamic indentation
of ceramic materials. There is also a section on analytical
and computational modeling of ceramic penetration and it contains a
number of papers on the evolving field of failure prediction.
Other sections of the book consist of research papers presenting
results from current research in ceramic damage mechanisms during penetration,
microstructural effects on ceramic armor performance, processing and manufacturing techniques
and development of novel and ultra lightweight concepts. There is
also a small section on the subject of the relatively
small group of transparent ceramics such as aluminium oxynitride and
magnesium aluminate spinel.
An attractive feature of this book is the
number of overview papers that makes it a useful resource
for not only the novice engineer but also the experienced
terminal ballistician. There are also a few general papers that
explore, for example, comparisons of materials or models. Another attractive
feature has to be is its uniqueness. To my knowledge
there is not another single book that collates the work
from such a vast wealth of experience on the subject
ceramic armor design and I hope that this will be
the first of many similar themed publications. As I write
this review, the proceedings from the subsequent American Ceramic’s Society
105th Annual Meeting is being published (Ceramic Transactions Vol. 151).
However,
one of the drawbacks of such a collection of work
is the variability in the writing style and hence the
readability of the work. Furthermore, it was a little disappointing
to see content that had been previously published in earlier
journals or symposium proceedings. The list price too leaves a
lot to be desired but is line with many speciality
texts at $129 (USD)—the book can be ordered directly from
the American Ceramic Society’s web site.
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Related topics:
ceramic armor, armor, book review
View first page of "J.W. McCauley, et al (eds), Ceramic Armor Materials By Design (Ceramic Transactions, Volume 134)"
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