Characterization of ballistic impact damage in wired glass

Abstract

The ballistic impact behavior of wired glass has been studied. Three types of commercially available samples, with thin and thick wire mesh, were impacted with steel, glass, and tungsten carbide spheres of various sizes using a gas gun. Impact energies varied from 0.5 to 40J. A system of cracks was found to develop that comprised primarily a major cone crack. At higher energies, additional radial and lateral cracking developed along with increased damage to the front face of the sample. The extent of damage was assessed in terms of basal cone crack area, number of cracks, mass loss, and fracture load of impacted samples. It was found that damage, at a given impact energy, increased with increasing projectile diameter. Moreover, 10mm diameter glass spheres caused more damage than smaller (3-4.74mm diameter) steel spheres. No significant differences were observed with regard to the ballistic behavior of the thin- and thick-wired glass types. © 2007 The American Ceramic Society.