Sunday, April 25, 2004

nanoparticles used in liquid armorMilitary Develops Liquid Body Armor: Liquid armor for Kevlar vests is being developed at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. This type of body armor is light and flexible, allowing full mobility. When pressure is applied quickly, it acts like a solid and spreads the impact force across the entire vest. The key component is a shear thickening fluid (STF), composed of hard nano-particles of silica suspended in polyethylene glycol liquid. During normal handling, the STF is very deformable and flows like a liquid. However, once a bullet or frag hits the vest, it transitions to a rigid material, which prevents the projectile from penetrating the soldier’s body.  [Slashdot 4/23/2004]
Reference: Advanced Body Armor Utilizing Shear Thickening Fluids [pdf], 2002, Lee, Egres, Wagner, E.D. Wetzel - Summary [pdf]
7:29:28 AM    

© Copyright 2004 Eric Hartwell .
Last update: 4/25/2004; 7:51:03 AM .

Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website. Valid CSS! Subscribe to "Detour" in Radio UserLand. Click to see the XML version of this web page. Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.