Spall Liner Energy Attenuating (EA) Material Development

When a ground combat vehicle is attacked, the occupants may incur head injury from the ensuing violent motion of the vehicle. Adding a layer of Energy Absorbing (EA) material for head protection is challenging because the occupied space within combat vehicles is already confined. Safe, Inc. proposes to develop the Head Impact Protection Spall Liner (HIPSL) to resolve this problem. Ground combat vehicles need spall liners to protect occupants from fragments ejected when overmatching weapons penetrate the vehicle armor. The HIPSL combines a head impact EA layer with a spall protection layer where each layer is optimized for thinness, allowing both concerns to be resolved within the available space. The proposed work addresses the EA, ballistic, thermal, acoustic, and Flame, Smoke, and Toxicity (FST) concerns with testing arranged to both find the thinnest design and demonstrate its performance against the associated requirements. Extensive use of designed experiments supports optimization.