NANOSONIC INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A14-078

Description

Through the proposed Army SBIR program, NanoSonic will create, qualify and integrate pioneering flame resistant, energy absorbing HybridSil trim materials for next-generation vehicle occupant protection during blast, crash and rollover events. This program will build from NanoSonics rapidly growing fire protective HybridSil polymeric armor technology which has independently validated ballistic / blast durability in excess of polyureas, transitions to flexible insulating silicate networks at elevated temperatures with negligible smoke toxicity, and has an established health rating of zero. Further, NanoSonics HybridSil FR armor has undergone extensive fire evaluation (ASTM E-1354, ASTM E-1321, ASTM E-84) and has passed the full scale ISO 9705 room corner burn test for qualification as a fire restrictive material per the IMO. Harnessing with this established technical base, NanoSonic will molecularly engineer its HybridSil FR polymeric armor for next-generation energy absorption capabilities by empirically identifying and optimizing structure property interdependencies affording head impact criterion < 1000 HICd 15ms at 15 mph. In support of a near term Phase III transition into combat vehicle trim packages, HybridSil resins have a current production capacity of 8,000 lbs / day, an MRL of 6, and have been integrated onto combat active DoD platforms for trial demonstrations.