High Performance, Concealed, Ceramic-Based Armor Panels for Military and Commercial Vehicles

An extremely capable team of M Cubed Technologies and Simula is providing an innovative approach to the design and fabrication of ceramic-based armor panels for military and commercial vehicles. In short, large ceramic tiles of complex shape willfabricated, then encapsulated in ballistic polymer. The resultant panels will match the shape of internal cavities within the commercial vehicle, thus allowing ease of integration. The use of large curved tiles will allow the cost of the system to be low(no building of arrays with smaller tiles), and will allow the armor system to function as part of the structure of the vehicle. The program will include many activities, such as design, ceramic fabrication, armor system fabrication, and ballistictesting. The strengths of the team members will be utilized, such as M Cubed's expertise in developing and manufacturing large, complex reaction bonded ceramic structures; and Simula's expertise in armor design, ballistic testing and armor systemmanufacturing. The Phase I program will demonstrate the feasibility of producing a low cost, high performance concealed armor system for commercial/military vehicles. In a subsequent Phase II program, a full-scale demonstration of the innovativeconcepts will be made. Applications for cost effective, light weight, high performance commercial vehicle armor abound, including a broad range of military vehicles, cash transport trucks, parade vehicles, cars for corporate officials, and vehicles forforeign dignitaries.