Chapter 3. Evaluation of SiC Armor Tile Using Ultrasonic Techniques

Summary

Obtaining reliable ballistic performance is important for full utilization of ceramic armor tile. In this work, various sets of armor tiles were studied using multiple ultrasonic approaches. One set of specimens consisted of three specially prepared SiC armor tile, 10cm by 10cm by 1.9 cm thick, and seeded with various defects representing those most likely to occur and cause ballistic failure. Water-coupled ultrasound studies were performed using both a conventional water-coupled system (in which time-of-flight measurements were used instead of conventional C-scan parameters) and a phased-array water-coupled system. It was demonstrated that while the conventional system, along with advanced digital image processing, allowed detection of most of these defects, the phased-array system achieved comparable if not superior results in a fraction of the time. This paper will present the test specimens that have been used so far in these studies, the details of the data acquisition parameters and the results obtained to date.