Highly-Transparent Armor Material (SiAlON/SiON) by Hot Isostatic Sintering and Polymer-Derived Ceramic (PDC) Route
Abstract
This proposal is to develop a one kind of lightweight bullet and wear-resistant transparent armormaterial to provide long-term protection for vehicles/aircraft windshields. If successful, we willbe able to reduce the porosity of current transparent bulletproof materials while simultaneouslydecreasing the density to achieve light-weight. Using the polymer-derived ceramic (PDC) routefollowed byhot isostatic sintering, a unique and low-density material which is much lighter thancurrently used material systems will be developed from SiAlON/SiON. This new and effectivetransparent armor will advance the ballistic and wear-resistant capabilities of aircraftwindshieldsand surpass traditional heavy glass laminates.Existing transparent ceramics have a relatively high density (> 3.5 g/cm 3 ) resulting in very heavymaterial products. An ideal transparent ceramic for ballistic protection will have a low densitycorresponding to a light weight and a low thickness. Overall, the ideal transparentarmormaterials should have a combination of all following properties:# Highly optical transparent within the visible and mid-infrared regions of the spectrum# Superior ballistic-resistant performance# Excellent mechanical properties# Lightweight # Low-cost processing methodIn this proposal, a new synthesis method is proposed which uniquely combines the polymer-derived ceramic (PDC) route and the hot isostatic sintering method. The polymer-derivedceramic (PDC) route is a #ceramic through chemistry# that allows synthesizing ceramic materialsin a variety of compositions and shapes, which are difficult to achieve using conventionalapproaches. Different from the lengthy and sophisticated procedures in conventional ceramicssintering method, PDCs are a class of materials directly prepared from the pyrolysis of hyper-crosslinked polymer precursors. Their material formats and complex shapes can be made withthe liquid processing of the polymer precursors. More importantly, the materials# compositionsand microstructures can be tuned with different crosslinking and pyrolysis conditions.Compared with the existing commercial AlON product on the market, the innovation PDC bringsis not only an addition of a component. The benefits are reduced density, less porosity, andimproved optical and mechanical properties that can be designed and adjusted during thefabrication process. The objective of this proposal is to make a highly-transparent armor materialwhich has low density and better resistance to bullet and sand impact.This abstract is publicly releasable.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jul 24, 2023
- Source ID
- N000142312718
Entities
People
- Chengying Xu
Organizations
- North Carolina State University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy