Navy Makes Armor Clear as Clay
25th April 2015
It’s a transparent armor so good it might turn the phrase “glass cannon” on its head. The Naval Research Laboratory developed a manufacturing process to reliably make a strong, transparent ceramic that also allows infrared cameras to look through it, which most commercial glass can’t do. Now that the process is complete, the NRL is sharing the technology with industry so they can scale it up to make giant sheets of transparent, lightweight, bulletproof clay.
Called Spinel, the material is made in a lab from synthetic powder. Under the right conditions, it can be shaped into strong, transparent sheets. The NRL has worked with the material for decades. Earlier production strategies used crucibles and high heat, which left behind imperfections that made the crystalline glass murky. To reliably produce clear material, NRL used a hot press under a vacuum. An added bonus to this method is that it allows the spinel to be pressed into shapes–for example, a dome for a new camera turret or a sloping panel that’s flush with a wing.