Enhanced Aerogels for Multi-Functional Asset Protection

Today, the Navy, and all of our nation's defense are faced with the unconventional threat of terrorist or other asymmetric attacks. As such, a unique system combining fire resistance, blast mitigation, and energy absorption for Navy surface ships will be developed and demonstrated. The proposed solution will utilize Aspen Aerogels' flexible aerogel blanket as an energy absorption mechanism. The product resulting from the proposed development would be suitable for field installation, and would provide designers enhanced design flexibility for new platforms. Phase I results indicated that in particular scenarios, the aerogel effectively reduces damage in a blast event. However, a more thorough understanding is required. The proposed Phase II program will focus on developing a thorough understanding of the aerogel behavior in a range of high strain rate events, and use these results to fabricate and test partial and full scale components to confirm their effectiveness as a blast mitigation system for naval assets. Aspen will be working with the Navy and experts at Penn State to predict the response and develop the proposed system. Overall, the proposed system would be lighter in weight, and thinner in cross-section than current state of the art thermal insulation and blast attenuation systems.