Design of armor for protection against blast and impact

The features of blast and impact that can damage a delicate target supported by a structure include both the peak pressure and the impulse delivered to the structure. This study examines how layers of elastic and visco-elastic materials may be assembled to mitigate these features. The impedance mismatch between two elastic layers is known to reduce the pressure, but dissipation is required to mitigate the transmitted impulse in light-weight armor. A novel design concept called impact or blast tuning is introduced in which a multi-layered armor is used to tune the stress waves resulting from an impact or blast to specific frequencies that match the damping frequencies of visco-elastic layers. The material and geometrical parameters controlling the viscous dissipation of the energy within the armor are identified for a simplified one-dimensional system, to provide insight into how the optimal design of multi-use armor might be based on this concept.