From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Tue Feb 26 2002 - 07:36:35 MST
Then Mike Lorrey said:
>
> On the contrary, ceramic materials are the new thing in body armor
> as well as in heavy military equipment. There was an interesting show
> on Discovery a week or so ago about an armored vest which sandwiches
a
> 1/4" plate of sintered ceramic between a couple thin sheets of kevlar.
> Effective against AP rifle rounds, even.
This is very interesting to me. I was previously aware of ceramic
rifle-stopper
plates in the front and back of level III-c vests, but I didn't know
that it was that effective. Do you know who produced those? They are
prototype, I assume, as a google doesn't bring up anything like that,
precisely...
Anyone have links to a good online explanatory page for some basic materials
science terminology and such, just so I don't have to collect quite so
many corrective posts, when i discover another exciting lil page?
-------------------------------------
A material you may find of interest is CERMET. It is a partially metallic,
and partially ceramic mixture, discovered at Los Alamos (accidently). Boron
Carbide (The ceramic) is held as a powder in the desired shape, in the most
common form, Aluminium is then melted and allowed to diffuse throughout the
material. The result (depending on how long you let it cool in an oxygen
rich environment) is a material that has a very high fracture toughness, and
is 6 times stronger than aluminum, but less dense. A 1/2, reportadly, can
stop a tank shell (no more specifics than that off the top of my head)
LANL.gov internal search engine is apparently down at the moment.
Michael
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