Abstract: The dwell phenomenon is of great significance to the design of armor structure. In this work，the anti-penetration characteristics of ceramic composite structure were studied numerically and experimentally. The characteristic of the failure of projectile during penetration process，projectile dwell time and energy dissipation were analyzed. Moreover，the influence of projectile velocity，nose shape and backplane thickness on the dwell and anti-penetration characteristic was explored as well. The results showed that in the penetration process，the projectile nose was completely eroded on ceramic surface，and a large amount of energy was dissipated at the same time. And the results also indicated that with increase of projectile velocity，the dwell time and projectile kinetic energy dissipation percentage decreased. When the projectile velocity is 600 m/s，the energy reduction percentage during the dwell period is up to 90%. As the cone angle of the projectile nose increases，the dwell time and kinetic energy dissipated during dwell show a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. And the energy reduction percentage during dwell period is about 80% when the half cone angle is 45°. In addition，as the thickness of the backplane decreases，the dwell time of projectile and the reduction of kinetic energy dissipation during the dwell did not change significantly.

Key words: ceramiccompositestructure, dwell, penetrationresistance, anti-penetrationcharacteristics