Transparent Ceramic Armor

Transparent ceramic and glass ceramic can reduce weight and thickness when introduced in armor design.

Transparent ceramic armor. Transparent ceramic armor provides superior ballistic protection over traditional glass laminates 18 june 2019 by donna lindner the army uh 60m helicopter platforms use transparent. Alon is the standard for highly effective and affordable transparent armor systems now and into the future. However the design process is still ambiguous generally because of the failure mechanism complexity during high speed impact 17 18 involving superposition of effects material geometry during projectile armor interactions. For example transparent ceramic armor consisting of a lightweight composite has been formed by utilizing a face plate of transparent alumina al 2 o 3 or magnesia mgo with a back up plate of transparent plastic.

A transparent lightweight armor comprising. Known commercially as alon transparent aluminum armor is made of aluminum oxynitride a combination of aluminum oxygen and nitrogen before it can end up as a hard transparent armor plate it begins as a powder. This powder is then molded subjected to high heat and baked just as any other ceramic is baked. The transparent ceramic armor provides superior ballistic protection at less than half the weight and thickness over traditional glass laminates.

These types of synthetic ceramic transparent armors can allow for thinner armor with equivalent stopping power to traditional laminated glass. Transparent ceramic armor as defined in claim 3 wherein the face plate has a thickness of substantially one half inch the back up plate has a thickness of substantially one and one quarter inches and the overall composite armor has an areal density of substantially 18 to 20 pounds per square foot. Advances in making large alon transparent armor windows surmet continues its advances in fabricating cost effective large area alon transparent armor windows for many applications. Surmet s transparent tiled three panel alon armor window.

For aerospace and defense markets surmet has developed weight efficient transparent armor technology based on its alon optical ceramic material. Here is what we are hearing. Level iiia high speed 9mm armor consists 8mm of laminated glass.