A Call to Armor: Army Explores Stronger, Lighter, Cheaper Protection
Rocky Research didn’t set out to create a new type of armor—far from it. When the new material first slid out of the company’s production oven, it caused considerable consternation. A worker responsible for cutting the material into usable shapes for a high-tech heat dissipation system found that it couldn’t be cut with ordinary tools.
Wondering just how strong this new material was, he took it to a shooting range and discovered that bullets couldn’t pierce it, either. The material proved so durable that “we had to laser-cut it,” said Uwe Rockenfeller, president and CEO of Nevada-based Rocky Research. “That’s when the concept of using it as armor came about.”
The company called the material COMBAM, for Coordinative Molecular Bond Armor Material. Using a high-temperature process to grow metal inorganic crystals on the fibers in a woven fabric, Rocky Research scientists invented an exceedingly tough textile.
No comments:
Post a Comment