Izdelava in karakterizacija inovativnih, litih, lahkih in sestavljenih kompozitnih materialov (Slovene)

Sense for development of science is referring to description of manufacturing of composite plate where point is in characterization and model description of combining different materials as are magnesium and aluminium combined in composite with ceramic foam and fine high strength metal mesh. Further on the possibility of production of even more complicated prototypes with outer layer made of Kevlar or carbon fibers will be investigated. It is expected that the ballistic protection of such prototype will be better per volume unit and will have longer life time in comparison with polymer material on basis of polyethylene. Successfully developed and characterized prototypes will serve for industry application that has big meaning for EU countries as well. Proposed technologies of combining materials are not known in today’s applications and scientific journals.

Police and army are today using older ballistic protection or bulletproof vests which were made before year 1991 and were also used in Slovenian independence war in 1991. This ballistic protection is made of polymer materials on basis of polyethylene and have lifetime of 10 years and weight up to 20 kg. This makes it hard to use because it is enabling movement of user, it hinders driving so it has to be put on just before use or action, it is in uniform size and causes overheating of the body during usage. Recent testing from Center for forensic research and Faculty of machining from Ljubljana has shown that mentioned vests are still quite safe and will be slowly replaced with new ones in time of five years. According to Ministry of the Interior the police would need about 4500 pieces of modern ballistic protection. Our newly developed composite plates will have great meaning for production of modern, light and adjustable bulletproof vests and also for production of ballistic shields for armored vehicles or light transport vehicles. Big advantage of this combination of materials is high breakthrough strength at relatively low specific mass in comparison with today known materials for this purposes.