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Future Soldier Will Generate Power
American soldier of the future will be garbed in an array of lightweight nanoscale materials
Doug Smock, Contributing Editor -- Design News, January 7, 2008
The American soldier of the future will be garbed in an array of lightweight nanoscale materials that will provide ballistic protection, produce power through solar energy and integrate electronics
that can monitor health and provide assistance when needed.
The drive toward a higher-tech soldier and combat vehicles is fueling development of new materials technology that rivals the revolution in materials seen in World War II, when the modern plastics industry was created.
One of the big goals is to reduce the weight and complexity of a modern soldier’s pack, which weighs as much as 140 lb, depending on the mission. A modern U.S. Army platoon requires close to 900 batteries.
“The Army has treated the soldier like a Christmas tree,” says Edwin Thomas, not long after he inaugurated the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, which is funded by the Dept. of Defense, MIT and private partners, including DuPont and Raytheon. “Someone would come up with a cool new thing and say ‘here carry this.’ Someone else comes up with a cool thing and says ‘carry this.’ And by the way it has its own special battery you have to buy from us,” he says.
The Army’s Wish List
The charter of the MIT center — working with the U.S. Army Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center — is to find smaller integrated solutions. And those goals are striking. In an 80-page broad announcement, these are some examples of what the Army wants:
• New polymers with improved tensile properties that can increase ballistic protection and reduce weight over current individual protection systems. One target is liquid crystal polymer fibers.
• New materials for energy absorption and vapor permeability cooling management for helmets.
• Improved lightweight, integrated communications devices.
• Chemical and biological protection.
• Integration of novel flame retardant systems into low-cost fibers for flame and thermal protection.
• Development of textile systems that cloak soldiers from infrared and other sensors used in enemy surveillance.
• Development of body-worn interactive systems that integrate electronics into protective clothing.
• Biomechanical devices that help soldiers in the field handle larger loads, such as an exoskeleton.
• Solar and fuel cells that soldiers can wear. The Army wants power levels of 20 to 30W. The cell can weigh no more than 0.6 kg.
Short-term there is a dramatic drive toward more lightweight systems for ballistic protection for both soldiers and vehicles. There’s an explosion of activity in new advanced composite systems. Soldiers and vehicles first sent to Iraq had inadequate ballistic protection.
“I liken what is happening in Iraq to what has gone on in aerospace,” says Doug Mattscheck, president and CEO of AGY, a specialty glass manufacturer based in Aiken, SC. “Aerospace engineers are optimizing on design by selecting more and more advanced advance composites as materials solutions for specific applications. The same thing is going on in defense as people want certain physical properties and very light weight.”
Steel and Aluminum Losing Ground
The three top composite systems are aramid-fiber reinforced composites (such as Kevlar), ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) composites and S-2 glass armor systems, which are also finding widespread use in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Another example is the Stryker Mobile Gun System made by General Dynamics. Manufacturers of all three materials are dramatically expanding capacity right now to meet soaring demand.
One of the hot new materials is Dyneema UHMW PE that is described as up to 15 times stronger than quality steel and up to 40 percent stronger than aramid fibers. Composix Co., a U.S. manufacturer of vehicle armor, will use the fiber for a high-end armor system for about 1,000 vehicles. The composite is a construction of several layers, with the direction of fibers in each layer placed at 90 degrees to the direction of the fibers in the adjacent layers. Royal DSM N.V. is expanding capacity for Dyneema UniDirectional bullet resistant sheet by 25 percent in its Greenville, NC plant.
Another major player in UHMWPE is Honeywell’s Spectra fiber-based materials.
“Pound for pound, Spectra fiber is 15 times stronger than steel yet light enough to float,” says a spokesperson for Honeywell, which has completed upgrades of several production lines to manufacture the fiber used for Spectra Shield II and plans to make additional investments to meet the growing demand.
PE with Punch UHMWPE is the lightest — and the most expensive — of the new materials solutions.
Next in line on the cost scale is aramid fiber, best known as DuPont’s Kevlar material. DuPont is boosting Kevlar capacity 25 percent in Richmond, VA, in the biggest expansion for the material since it was introduced in 1965. The fiber systems are used in the Army’s Intecerptor Body Armor System, which weighs 16.4 lb, or about 8 lb less than the flak jacket which had been used as body armor. A major component of the new system is boron oxide ceramic plates. The outer tactical vest is made of Kevlar weave, while the ceramic has a Spectra shield backing. The Army was woefully short of systems with ceramic plate after the invasion of Iraq, triggering a massive burst in production. Ceradyne Inc., for example, was awarded a $28 million order for ceramic inserts as part of a $461 million firm fixed price fee contract for interceptor body armor inserts for delivery through 2007.
Another immediate need is a flame-proof, nontoxic body garment.
The U.S. Marine Corps, last year, banned clothing made of synthetic materials, such as nylon and polyester, for troops in Iraq because of serious burn injuries sustained when soldiers were exposed to heat and flames. In some cases, clothing melted and fused with skin. The U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, MA, is working with the American Sheep Industry Assn. and the American Wool Council to develop a family of woolen, flame-resistant woven and knitted fabrics.
Carole Winterhalter, a textile expert at the SSC, says the new materials are suitable for combat uniforms and other protective clothing and will cost less than existing military flame-resistant fabrics. A flame-resistant knitted fabric made of 50 percent wool and 50 percent aramid will be used for underwear, hand wear and head wear. Adding wool to aramid will provide more comfort while maintaining the thermal protection provided by 100 percent aramid fabric. Use of wool will also lower the cost of the material.
What’s Coming
For the next generation body armor, the U.S. military wants ballistic protection plus integrated functionality.
One focal point is textiles made of fibers that have different functionality. For example, threads could be produced that combine positive and negative battery electrodes and electrolytes and woven into uniforms. A photovoltaic system could also be woven from designer polymers. One of the keys to the approach is a new high-tech machine from a company called Hills Inc. located in West Melbourne Hills, FL, that can combine three fibers of polymers or metals into complex woven shapes. The U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center is taking delivery of one of the machines early this year.
Hills’ metal core fiber is a regular polymer fiber with a real metal core. Any melt spinnable polymer can be used to make this fiber. The metal content can be as low as 1 percent.
This fiber is spun using a low melt temperature metal alloy that is extruded along with the polymer directly into the core of the fiber. Since the core is real metal it is 1,000 times as conductive as standard carbon-filled conductive fibers, so it is a superior substitute for antistatic applications. Also, the silver color allows it to be used in all colors without causing color pollution. Other applications are RADAR reflective cloth, electronic textiles, micro wiring and micro medical devices.
Another idea is to develop a uniform that could also serve a medical purpose. One idea that was kicked around early by the MIT Center was to develop a pant leg that could be flexible for normal use and then stiff when a solder suffered an injury and needed a splint. The idea was an outgrowth of meetings with one of MIT’s partners, a prominent hospital group in Boston. Tiny magnetic particles would be embedded in fibers that are hollow. These fluids could be converted to a solid through activation of a magnetic field. “A super paramagnetic phase transition can occur with around 5 nanometers or 10 nanometers,” says Edwin Thomas, who heads MIT’s Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering. “If we could get sizes just below that size limit, they would be super paramagnetic. If you could change the chemistry of the particles, you could chemically alter them from the paramagnetic to the magnetic state. We could do a chemical reaction in that suit to change it from fluid to solid and then back again. And then you could reverse the chemistry. These are wild, futuristic ideas but they don’t violate any laws of physics.”
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Future Soldier Will Generate Power
American soldier of the future will be garbed in an array of lightweight nanoscale materials
Talkback
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why dont you ask the next guy you two time. whats it been now. 3 or 4??? classy lady.
- 2008-06-06 20:33:23 -
where can i download the 80 pages announcement that explains the military requirements?thks
- 2008-05-15 12:10:32
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