3WEAVE MULTI-FUNCTIONAL COMPOSITES; LOAD BEARING AND ARMOR PROTECTION

Shipboard structures such as aircraft hangars, masts, antennae cable trunks, etc. need armor protection against small arms fire and light blast associated with a terrorist or other asymmetric attack. These structures benefit from the use of lightweightanti-corrosive materials. 3TEX will develop a multi-functional composite material system that will both carry structural loads and provide ballistic protection. The new material/armor technology is based on 3WEAVE 3D weaving for the reinforcement of theFRP composite. 3WEAVE composites have been shown to provide superior multi-hit performance at lower weight in hard faced armor systems. Using a combination of design-build-test and detailed material level analysis, the concept of 3WEAVE multi-functionalmaterial will be demonstrated. This work will be accomplished with a project team that includes the University of Delaware Center for Composite Materials (UD-CCM), Northrop Grumman Ship Systems (NGSS), and Northrop Grumman Newport News (NGNS). 3WEAVEMulti-Functional Composite systems will be optimized and developed for specific Naval applications. Once proven, these materials can be retrofitted to existing shipboard structure and or implemented into new platforms such as the DDX. These materials willboth carry the necessary structural loads and provide required ballistic/blast protection, all at a lower weight than current state-of-the-art materials.