Lightweight Ballistic Armor for Military Aircraft Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Topic No.: N05-023 Topic Title: Lightweight Ballistic Armor for Military Aircraft Proposal No.: N051-023-0758 Firm: NanoLab, Inc. 55 Chapel St Newton, Massachusetts 02458 Contact: Mark Koslowske Phone: (617) 581-6747 Web Site: www.nano-lab.com Abstract: Many Navy aircraft platforms face the compromise between complete crew protection and diminished mission capability. NanoLab proposes a novel, lightweight aircraft armor solution that is easily manufactured, repairable and cost competitive. This is accomplished using a composite approach to the ballistic strike material, in which ceramic spheres of boron carbide are arranged in a polymer matrix material. Boron carbide has been used in aircraft armor applications for over 4 decades due to its high strength to weight ratio, but it suffers from high cost and low repair-ability. In the Phase I effort, we will develop pressure-less sintering techniques to reduce the cost of this critical material, and incorporate it in a unique form that allows additional defeat mechanisms, mold-ability, and repair. Benefits: Armor materials are becoming much more mainstream, and are showing up in the inventories of police forces, and on many types of vehicles. Boron carbide has been the ballistic material of choice, but it is expensive to form, as it has traditionally been hot pressed. Advances in pressureless sintering will allow boron carbide to become more cost effective, both in armor and in commercial applications, such as high wear components. Return