Penetration of a steel projectile in a RC plate on the impacted side after an impact experiment in the drop tower facility (left). Damage representation across the thickness of an impacted RC plate strengthened on the rear side – cut plane through the location of projectile impact, i.e. middle of the plate (right).

The image indicates that on the back side of an impacted element mainly tensile stresses occur in the strengthening layer, while on the front side punching shear type of loading may dominate.

The goal of the project is to develop and optimize testing methodologies for a reliable characterization of the shear behavior of mineral-bonded composites with short-dispersed and continuous fiber reinforcement at the composite and constituents scales, i.e., matrix, fibers and fiber-matrix bond. For this purpose dedicated testing setups shall be developed. The influence of various reinforcement configurations, geometries and materials in medium-strength and high-strength matrices shall be investigated experimentally and numerically. The findings from this research should serve as basis for the formulation and validation of material design concepts with respect to impact shear loading.