Use Of Ceramics In Military Vehicle Armour

Modern ceramic composites have largely replaced steel as the non structural armor in combat vehicles.

Use of ceramics in military vehicle armour.

The most common ceramic materials used for armor applications are alumina boron carbide silicon carbide and. Its major advantage lies in its significantly lower areal weight which allows weight savings of more than 50 per cent over conventional metallic. Each product is made of next generation materials shapes and sizes for use in body ground vehicle aircraft and marine applications to protect the soldiers of today and tomorrow. Ceramics offer an advantage over steel in weight reduction and over all metals in impact energy absorption.

Coorstek manufactures lightweight superior ballistic performance ceramic components for armor integration. Ceramic armor can be used to protect vehicles as well as individual personnel and dates back to 1918. The protection offered by ceramic composite armor is based on a different mechanism. Army research lab and australian defence science and technology group are collaborating to study ceramic materials for potential use in the design of military vehicle armor using neutrons at oak ridge national laboratory s.

Just like the kevlar the ceramic plates redistribute the kinetic energy of an incoming rifle round slowing it down enough that it would not be able to penetrate the kevlar if it passed through the ceramic. Ceramics are often used where light weight is important as they weigh less than metal alloys for a given degree of resistance. The need for lighter protection materials for use by the military has given merit to the use of ceramic armor materials. Ceramic material shatters as the heat round penetrates the highly energetic fragments destroying the geometry of the metal jet generated by the hollow shaped charge greatly diminishing the penetration.

The most common materials are alumina boron carbide silicon carbide and titanium diboride. Military vehicles have traditionally been manufac tured from high strength armor plate steel. One main reason for this is its up to 50 weight advantage. The interceptor armor does have pockets on the outside of the vests so ceramic plates can be inserted to upgrade the armor to level iiia.

However in composite systems such as ceramic polymer composites ceramic has largely replaced the steels previously used for personnel and vehicle protection. Coorstek provides armor components to armor integrators building. Ceramics are known to be some of the of the hardest materials and unlike materials such as kevlar which uses its fibers to catch the bullet ceramics break the bullet. Ceramic armor is armor used by armored vehicles and in personal armor to resist projectile penetration through high hardness and compressive strength.

Ceramic armor is armor used by armored vehicles and in personal armor for its attenuative properties.