| dc.description.abstract | This thesis investigates projectile impact on double-layered high-strength steel (HSS) plates commonly used for ballistic protection of buildings. The gap between adjoining protective plates in such configurations may be a design weakness that should be addressed. This study seeks to investigate the change in capacity against small arms projectile perforation for increasing gap sizes, by primarily considering the ballistic limit velocity and material response during the perforation process. By combining a literature review and numerical methods, a parametric case study is conducted with a finite element model (FEM) that is calibrated to experimental results from the literature. The numerical results clearly show that the ballistic limit velocities decrease as the gap size increase. Thus, the capacity of the protection system against small arms projectiles is significantly affected by the gap size between adjoining plates and the gap location. To effectively provide recommendations for design and assembly purposes, a set of predictive equations that accurately describes the numerical results is deduced. The equations predict the ballistic limit velocity for varying gap location as a function of gap size and plate thickness. | en_US |
