Advanced Blast Packaging Materials

Advanced Ceramics Research Inc., (ACR) will collaborate with Professor Ted Krauthammer Director, Protective Technology Center, Penn State University, to screen materials, design and validate a ballistic vessel capable of safely containing detonation of a 2000lb bomb for a minimum container mass and size. This proposal will assess new technologies and new state-of-the-art materials, and through a thorough understanding of the technology and challenges that the problem presents, optimize the overall design and materials configuration to achieve detonation confinement with the minimum mass. The performance of new energy adsorbing ceramics will be integrated with light weight ballistic composites capable of blast containment. Aspects of shrapnel containment will be addressed through the integration of capture/defeat mechanisms and modeling will be used to predict the shock and gas pressure magnitudes and durations. A structural dynamics model will be used to perform parametric studies on the response of different design configurations thereby optimizing the materials configuration to provide minimum vessel mass.