| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 782710 | International Journal of Impact Engineering | 2016 | 9 Pages |
•Plate-impact and ballistics tests on the epithelial/muscular analogue Perma-Gel®.•Us-up and σx-up/σx-v equations-of-state established for the first time.•Perma-Gel's® high-rate compressibility tentatively linked to ballistic response.•Importance of individual tissue analogue material properties highlighted.•Importance of composite rather than individual simulants noted.
For both ethical and practical reasons accurate tissue simulant materials are essential for ballistic testing applications. A wide variety of different materials have been previously adopted for such roles, ranging from gelatin to ballistics soap. However, while often well characterised quasi-statically, there is typically a paucity of information on the high strain-rate response of such materials in the literature. Here, building on previous studies by the authors on other tissue analogues, equation-of-state data for the elastomeric epithelial/muscular simulant material Perma-Gel® is presented, along with results from a series of ballistic tests designed to illustrate its impact-related behaviour. Comparison of both hydrodynamic and ballistic behaviour to that of comparable epithelial tissues/analogues (Sylgard® and porcine muscle tissue) has provided an insight into the applicability of both Perma-Gel® and, more generally, monolithic simulants for ballistic testing purposes. Of particular note was an apparent link between the high strain-rate compressibility (evidenced in the Hugoniot relationship in the Us-up plane) and subsequent ballistic response of these materials. Overall, work conducted in this study highlighted the importance of fully characterising tissue analogues – with particular emphasis on the requirement to understand the behaviour of such analogues under impact as part of a system as well as individually.
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