Now You See Me, Now You Don't

Military vehicles produce large amounts of heat.  This leave them and the people inside vulnerable to thermal and infrared detection.  However a new stealth system developed by Eltics could protect our troops by rendering them invisible to enemy detection and giving them a tactical advantages.

Black Fox is the name of the advance stealth system in development that can scan the surrounding environment and adjusts the exterior plates to match the conditions.  The system utilizes Forward Looking Infrared camera or FLIR to scan the environment.  This data is then sent to a computer that regulates the conditions of the plates.  Even the plates near the engine can maintain the same environmental conditions.

Now if being invisible is necessary or possible Black Fox has the ability to generate different thermal signatures.  This means a tank can be made to look like a humvee.  There is currently research into applying this technology to other vehicles including helicopters and ships.

The Future of Glass

Just a short little post to fill in your day.  I just watch a video produced by Corning, a major ceramics and glass company, called "A Day Made of Glass."  In this video our world in the not to distant future is envisioned as one giant touch screen courtesy of Corning glass.  Corning shows the application of their advance glasses for cooking to teleconferencing and areas in between.  Although this video is a major PR push to show the advancements Corning is making in the industry it's still pretty cool.  Just look for yourself.

Lighter Than Air

While looking around for a ceramic material to blog about I came across something called aerogel.  Aerogel, also known as frozen smoke, solid smoke, and solid air, is an extremely porous solid materials that kinda feels like Styrofoam.  Aerogel is so porous you can actually see right through some types.  It is the lightest recorded solid on Earth with some weighing only 3 times more than air.

Now why does this material matter?  It matters because despite its low weight and density aerogel can support in compression 4000 times it weight.  That's like supporting the weight of a car on your back.  Since aerogel is so light and porous it makes an excelling heat and electrical conductor.  The huge gaps of air inside its structure makes it difficult for heat to move through it.  However like most ceramics it still very brittle.  Just watch this intro video about aerogels.

That has gotta be hot?  No, not really.

Aerogels are commonly made out of materials like silica, carbon, or alumina.  To make aerogel the ceramic material is mixed together in a liquid solution made of alcohol and other things with long complicated names.  When these materials are added together they create a complex interlinked microstructure that stops the flow liquid.  When the liquid stops moving this material is call a gel.  Now the key to making a good aerogel is how liquid is removed.  By allowing liquid to normally evaporate form the gel it is possible that the movement of liquid out destroys part of the microstructure.  To avoid this aerogel is often placed in high pressure high temperature environments that evaporates the liquid in it place, thus preserving the microstructure.

Aerogels are currently being used in areas like window insulation.  NASA has a number of uses aerogel including insulation in the Mars Rover and spacesuits.  NASA also used aerogels to trap space dust on the Stardust spacecraft.  Space particles normally vaporize when the contact solid materials.  Companies like Dunlop are even using them in tennis rackets.

If you want to know more about aerogels I found this amazing blog with all kinds of information.  The blog is called "aerogel.org."

I Can See Clearly Now

The military is looking for new window and dome materials to replace the current multilayer glass currently used.  This material need to be cheap to produce and able to withstand erosion in high speed environments.  In addition this material needs to be lightweight, with no visual distortion and needs to be compatible with current night vision technology.

Now I know I've have previously spoken about transparent ceramic, but I recently discover a couple of papers written by one of my professor detailing his work in transparent spinel for applications in military defense.

Transparent spinel is actually a type of spinel called Magnesium aluminate spinel (MgAl2O4).  The reason it is commonly referred to as transparent spinel is most spinel material is not actually transparent.  Thanks to certain processing steps this spinel does become transparent.  To create transparent spinel the spinel power is mixed with LiF (Lithium Fluoride) to aid in uniform sintering.  The mix is placed in a hot press at 1550°C for 2 hours and under 35 MPa of pressure.  The spinel is then cut and polished with diamonds to reveal and transparent material.


Transparent spinel offers multi-hit protection for vehicles.  Spinel offers comparable protection to the current glass based armor while reducing the weight and thickness by about half.  Just watch this video of an actual ballistic test of spinel vs. ballistic glass as seeing is believing.

It also has an advantage compared to AlON and sapphire which are also considered for use in transparent armor applications since it is processed at lower temperatures reducing the overall cost of production.


I think it really cool that our teachers are researching this kind of material on our campus.  Keep up the good work Dr. Reimanis.

An Idea Takes Form

The academic year is quickly reaching its end and with that comes the end of my senior project.  If you are a frequent reader of this blog you know that a group of students and myself are designing a bulletproof mug.  This mug is going to be entered in a contest against mug designed by students from colleges and universities around the nation.  Well now is the time to reveal the final mug design.

Ta Da!!!

Huh?

Now you're probably saying, "What kind of stupid mug is that?  How would I even drink from that thing?"  Both are very valid questions, but you have to remember the purpose of the mug.  It is not meant to hold your morning coffee but to survive when dropped on the floor.  The mug had to be designed within specific criteria found here on Keramos's website.  The most important rules are:

1. Mugs must be able to contain at least 500 ml and not more than 625 ml of liquid, and be useable for drinking purposes. Mugs must not decompose when they contain a liquid.

2.  All mugs must have a serviceable handle(s) which permits gripping and retaining a mug filled with at least 500 ml of liquid.

3.  Mugs must be made entirely from ceramic or glass materials, and may not contain any metal, plastic, paint, organics, or nonceramic materials.

Knowing these requirement I think we designed an awesome mug, I may be a little bias.  Now I can't wait until we finish dropping these things so I can upload a video of me throwing my mug to the ground.  Until then here's a link of a guy that maybe shouldn't throw so many thing to ground.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e4e2187156/andy-samberg-i-threw-it-on-the-ground

Disclaimer:  This video has nothing to do with ceramics or science communication but whenever I think about the mug drop contest this video pops in my head.

The Art in Ceramics

If you ever worked in a scientific lab you have probably used a crucible or beaker.  I bet you didn't know that these things are considered art.  That's right I just found out that the Denver Art Museum is going to open up an exhibit revolved around lab equipment and tools made by CoorsTek.  Don't believe just check out this link.  Now I myself am a little skeptical of ceramic lab ware as art but hey this is very unique form of science communication.  This exhibits is going to expose a new audience of people to the scientific aspect of ceramics.  So mark your calenders for June 11.

Checking Out the Competition

If you been keeping up with this blog you'll know that me and a couple of other students are designing a mug from Keramos's National Mug Drop Contest in October.  So I thought I'd take the time and show you some videos of other schools mugs that have competed in the past.

From what I've seen it looks like we've got nothing to worry about from OSU but we may have to watch out for the University of Washington.