Polyurea Development and Modeling for Advanced Blast and Impact Mitigation

The Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) represents the next generation of armored and tracked troop carriers designed to operate over harsh terrain and in extreme environments. The protection of troop personnel on board the EFV is of paramount importance and recent developments in spray-applied polyurea materials have shown the potential to significantly increase blast protection to metallic and non-metallic substrates. Luna proposes to develop an innovative spray-applicable polyurea system that offers increased mechanical properties (e.g. elastic modulus and tensile strength), translating into enhanced energy absorption capabilities and spall resistance. Luna will utilize their polymer and coatings formulation expertise to optimize the performance properties and processibility of the advanced polyurea materials. In addition, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) will work with Luna to perform blast testing of substrates coated with Luna’s polyurea materials to evaluate their blast mitigating qualities under high strain rate deformation and impulsive blast loads. SwRI will also develop a modeling strategy to aid in predicting the response of various polyurea-coated substrates to different blast loads, providing the Marine Corps with an integrated blast mitigation solution.