Ceramic Tank Armour

The core armor is a variation on the british chobham armor an arrangement of metal plates ceramic blocks and open space.

Ceramic tank armour.

Other names informally given to chobham armour include burlington and dorchester. The strongest and lightest ceramic is boron carbide. Ceramic armor is armor used by armored vehicles and in personal armor to resist projectile penetration through high hardness and compressive strength. Chobham armour is the informal name of a composite armour developed in the 1960s at the british tank research centre on chobham common surrey.

Ceramics are often used where light weight is important as they weigh less than metal alloys for a given degree of resistance. Ceramic armor can be used to protect vehicles as well as individual personnel and dates back to 1918. 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. Composite armor plates are lighter thicker and more flexible than steel plates.

Ceramic composite armor plates are placed in body armor plate carriers and worn to protect against bullets projectiles fragmentation shrapnel and stab threats. Thus it is necessary that the ceramic material presents high elastic modulus and high hardness 2. The most common ceramic materials used for armor applications are alumina boron carbide silicon carbide and titanium diboride. The ceramic material can absorb a lot of heat as well as heavy physical blows.

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. Ceramic armor is armor used by armored vehicles and in personal armor for its attenuative properties. Most ceramic composite body armor plates cannot withstand multiple hits to the same area. Ceramic materials for using as ballistic armor must be sufficiently rigid to fragment the bullet and reduce its speed transforming it into small fragments that should be stopped by the layer of flexible material that supports the ceramic.

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. The name has since become the common generic term for composite ceramic vehicle armour.