During the 2011-2012 school year, I researched whether or not the location of where the projectile strikes a ceramic tile affects the delamination of the composite back plate. Delamination is when the layers of the composite separate apart. The summer of 2011, I researched whether the thickness and area has an affect on back plate delamination. For both research projects, I created targets out of glass tiles and S2 glass/SC-15 epoxy composites and Deerfield Thermoplastic Urethane. I created the composite through the Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) process.

The above pictures are from the 2011-2012 research project. The arrows point to where the projectile was aimed and the glass is outlined with the dotted red line. The results from this project was that the three tile arrangement had the largest area of delamination because of the area of the all the tiles. However, more research and trials need to be done.

The photographs below show the delamination and correspond to each of the three target types from above. The delamination is the dark area. When there is delamination, light cannot pass through the composite as easily.

The project that I completed during the summer of 2011 is very similar to the research project that I completed during the following school year (2011-2012). For that project, I was measuring whether or not the thickness or the area of a glass tile affects delamination. I created targets in the same manner as described above except there were three different glass thicknesses. Also, there were three different sizes of glass (the areas of the glasses varied). Again the targets were shot and I measured the delamination area to quantify the damage. Again, more trials need to be done to be able to make any conclusions.