Air Force testing new transparent armor

[Apoptosis]

Transparent aluminum?? Reality truly is stranger than fiction

10/17/2005 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) -- Engineers here are testing a new kind of transparent armor -- stronger and lighter than traditional materials -- that could stop armor-piercing weapons from penetrating vehicle windows.

The Air Force Research Laboratory's materials and manufacturing directorate is testing aluminum oxynitride -- ALONtm -- as a replacement for the traditional multi-layered glass transparencies now used in existing ground and air armored vehicles.

The test are being done in conjunction with the Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md., and University of Dayton Research Institute, Ohio.

ALONtm is a ceramic compound with a high compressive strength and durability. When polished, it is the premier transparent armor for use in armored vehicles, said. 1st Lt. Joseph La Monica, transparent armor sub-direction lead

"The substance itself is light years ahead of glass," he said, adding that it offers "higher performance and lighter weight."

Traditional transparent armor is thick layers of bonded glass. The new armor combines the transparent ALONtm piece as a strike plate, a middle section of glass and a polymer backing. Each layer is visibly thinner than the traditional layers.

ALONtm is virtually scratch resistant, offers substantial impact resistance, and provides better durability and protection against armor piercing threats, at roughly half the weight and half the thickness of traditional glass transparent armor, said the lieutenant.

In a June 2004demonstration, an ALONtm test pieces held up to both a .30 caliber Russian M-44 sniper rifle and a .50 caliber Browning Sniper Rifle with armor piercing bullets. While the bullets pierced the glass samples, the armor withstood the impact with no penetration.

In extensive testing, ALONtm has performed well against multiple hits of .30 caliber armor piercing rounds -- typical of anti-aircraft fire, Lieutenant La Monica said. Ttests focusing on multiple hits from .50 caliber rounds and improvised explosive devices are in the works.

The lieutenant is optimistic about the results because the physical properties and design of the material are intended to stop higher level threats.

"The higher the threat, the more savings you're going to get," he said. "With glass, to get the protection against higher threats, you have to keep building layers upon layers. But with ALONtm, the material only needs to be increased a few millimeters."

This ability to add the needed protection with only a small amount of material is very advantageous, said Ron Hoffman, an investigator at University of Dayton Research Institute.

"When looking at higher level threats, you want the protection, not the weight," Mr. Hoffman said. "Achieving protection at lighter weights will allow the armor to be more easily integrated into vehicles."

Mr. Hoffman also pointed out the benefit of durability with ALONtm.

"Eventually, with a conventional glass surface, degradation takes place and results in a loss of transparency," Mr. Hoffman said. "Things such as sand have little or no impact on ALONtm, and it probably has a life expectancy many times that of glass."

The scratch-resistant quality will greatly increase the transparency of the armor, giving military members more visual awareness on the battlefield.

"It all comes down to survivability and being able to see what's out there and to make decisions while having the added protection," Mr. Hoffman said.

The Army is looking to use the new armor as windows in ground vehicles, like the Humvee, Lieutenant La Monica said. The Air Force is exploring its use for "in-flight protective transparencies for low, slow-flying aircraft. These include the C-130 Hercules, C-17 Globemaster III, A-10 Thunderbolt II and helicopters.

While some see the possibilities of this material as limitless, manufacturability, size and cost are issues the lab is dealing with before the armor can transition to the field, the lieutenant said.

"Traditional transparent armor costs a little over $3 per square inch. The ALONtm Transparent Armor cost is $10 to $15 per square inch," Lieutenant La Monica said. "The difficulties arise with heating and polishing processes, which lead to higher costs. But we are looking at more cost effective alternatives."

Lieutenant La Monica said experimenting with the polishing process has proven beneficial.

"We found that by polishing it a certain way, we increased the strength of the material by two-fold," he said.

Currently, size is also limited because equipment needed to heat larger pieces is expensive. To help lower costs, the lieutenant said researchers are looking at design variations that use smaller pieces of the armor tiled together to form larger windows.

Lowering cost by using a commercial grade material is also an option, and the results have been promising.

"So far, the difference between the lower-grade material and higher purity in ballistic tests is minimal," he said.

Lieutenant La Monica said once the material can be manufactured in large quantities to meet the military's needs, and the cost brought down, the durability and strength of ALONtm will prove beneficial to the warfighter.

"It might cost more in the beginning, but it is going to cost less in the long run because you are going to have to replace it less," he said.

(Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)

[Apoptosis]

found some more on it at http://www.afrlhorizons.com/Briefs/Sept03/ML0303.html

A tough, new, lightweight, transparent ceramic material may hold the key to better protection for flight crews, ground personnel, and the warfighter systems they operate.

AFRL's Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Survivability and Sensor Materials Division, Sensor Materials Branch, Wright-Patterson AFB OH
Engineers at the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, working with Raytheon Electronic Systems, completed an advanced development effort to evaluate forming techniques and optimize fabrication processes for a tough, lightweight, transparent ceramic material that addresses a wide range of technological interests throughout the Department of Defense (DoD), other federal agencies, and private industry. They developed polycrystalline aluminum oxynitride, known commercially as ALON, through engineering research efforts between the directorate's Survivability and Sensor Materials Division and Raytheon Electronic Systems at Lexington Laboratories, Lexington, Massachusetts, who owns the patent. ALON is a very durable optical ceramic with a high degree of transparency from the ultraviolet through the mid-infrared (IR) wavelengths. It is equivalent to sapphire in terms of optical quality, low density, high strength, and high durability. However, its properties are isotropic, making it scaleable by conventional powder-processing methods. Thus, engineers can scale ALON to larger sizes and produce it more cost effectively than single crystal growth techniques required for conventional materials.

Successful transition of this innovative, new technology could trim millions of dollars off the life-cycle costs of forward-looking IR windows, missile domes, underwater sensors, transparent armor, and personnel protection. Promising commercial applications include supermarket scanner windows (currently being field-tested), vehicle transparent armor, scratchproof lenses, various lighting applications, and semiconductor wafer carriers.

Under Air Force funding, engineers fabricated and optically finished several large (14 in. ´ 20 in.) ALON plates (see Figure 1) for flight testing, ballistics testing, and transparent armor applications. The advanced development effort demonstrated conclusively that ALON has excellent mechanical and optical properties, and it provides several advantages when compared to conventional midwave materials and transparent armor. Additionally, ALON provides IR transparency, whereas glass, polycarbonate, and other conventional armor materials cannot. Directorate engineers identified tens of thousands of window panels throughout DoD as potential candidates for this rapidly emerging technology.

Its high hardness provides outstanding ballistic impact resistance for safeguarding motor vehicle occupants. In previous ballistic tests, the ALON material demonstrated superior performance in single-hit impact testing. However, since most threat weapons are automatic or semiautomatic, one critical requirement is the ability to withstand multiple hits. Multi-hit ballistic testing, using 12 in. ´ 12 in. samples produced under the advanced development effort, showed that ALON laminate withstands multiple impacts without penetration. As a result of these findings, engineers are evaluating it for possible insertion into ground-based transparent armor.

ALON is extremely versatile since it offers performance and scaling not otherwise possible for large, lightweight, IR transparencies (see Figure 2), and it has a number of major advantages over conventional materials currently in use. It is very durable under extreme environmental conditions and offers excellent resistance to ballistic impacts because of its hardness. ALON is the only transparent ceramic material that is both scaleable and affordable, and it provides a 50% weight savings depending on the application, which also helps reduce costs. ALON is commercially available from Surmet Corporation, Burlington, Massachusetts. Raytheon has already inserted it into a number of applications, and they are evaluating it for possible use in other important programs.

[killswitch83]

niiice, maybe it'll be available one day for PC mods??? roflol

[T-Shirt]

amazing stuff. I've been waiting for this to be commerially available (no real need, just seem interesting)
I doubt it will be cheap, given that it's replacing bullet proof glass and manmade saphire.

[Dragon_Cooler]

if its soo tough why are they using gloves and not man handling it in the pictures. lawl!

[killswitch83]

cuz he's a spooge, roflol

[JTanczos]

Didnt scotty invent this stuff sometime back in the 80s? I remember clearly that he did. He said it would take a few years to develope. ;)

Very cool find. Worth the read. Stuff wont be cheap but very cool none the less.

JT