Protection of steel railcar tank containing liquid chlorine from high speed impact by using polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane-enhanced polyurea

• PU coating cannot increase the BL of TC-128 steel but it exhibits self-sealing properties.
• The size of the hole left in the coating after the impact of 0.5 caliber is less than 5 mm.
• Close agreements of BL were found between the experimental and simulation results.

The ballistic resistance and self-sealing behavior of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS)-enhanced polyurea (PU) coated TC-128 steel plates subjected to high speed impact were investigated experimentally and numerically. Both experimental and numerical results showed that the POSS-enhanced PU exhibited strong self-sealing properties under high-speed impact and could dramatically reduce leaking of toxic liquid from a hole in the railcar tank. Experimental results and simulation results agreed well for the ballistic limit of POSS-enhanced PU coated and uncoated TC-128 steel plates, with an average error of 5.72%. In terms of the size of hole left after the impact test, although the simulation result for the uncoated TC-128 steel plate was almost identical to the experimental result, the simulation result for the POSS-enhanced PU coating layer was doubled compared to the experimental result, probably due to the mass erosion effect. The POSS-enhanced PU material may serve as a class of effective protective coating layers to reduce the leaking of toxic chemicals from steel railcar tanks.