Not all ceramic armor plates are flat. The current study looks at characterizing ballistic impacl damage in a thin boron carbide, B_4C, body armor torso plate with a compound curvature impacted by lead core rifle ball ammunition. The non-invasive characterization and visualization of this impacl damage was conducted post-mortem using previously established x-ray computed tomography, XCT, diagnostic techniques [1-11]. Despite being impacted from three separate hits, the ceramic plate remained essentially intact. Our initial and in-situ damage observations include: large cratering on the impacted B_4C front surface. three complete penetrations of B_4C plate but apparently not through the composite backing plate, substantial bulging on the rear of the composite backing plate at each hit location, extensive mesoscale cracking and ceramic fragmentation in the B_4C plate, and multiple small high density projectile fragments embedded in the composite backing plate. These qualitative and quantitative ballistic impact damage initial results are reported and discussed along with 2D and 3D virtual images. The results are considered significant in permitting the cognitive visualization of such in-situ impact damage and thus aid in improving our understanding of both the physical damage and penetration manifestations in such a target.
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