LUNA INNOVATIONS INCORPORATED — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: Transparent armor usually ranks among the heaviest of all materials on tactical vehicles p

Description

Transparent armor usually ranks among the heaviest of all materials on tactical vehicles per size and weighs significantly more than opaque armor at the same protection level. This is due to the large thicknesses required to provide the required ballistic protection. For this reason, transparent armor is one of the first places engineers look to reduce overall weight, leading to the reduction in size of transparent armor windows, significantly restricting the field of view afforded to military personnel making them more vulnerable to outside threats. Novel material solutions are required to reduce the weight and thickness relative to current transparent armor. To this end, Luna Incorporated proposes a transparent three dimensional woven S-glass fiber reinforced polyurethane composite armor material. The S-glass fibers will be specially coated with a nanofiber functionalized sol-gel interface layer to provide enhanced fiber matrix interaction. The sol-gel layer will also be formulated with a tuned refractive index and coefficient of thermal expansion to maintain optical clarity during temperature changes. The resulting transparent armor material will be lightweight and environmentally stable allowing for enhanced multi-hit ballistic performance.