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US 6,474,213 B1Granted
Reactive stiffening armor system
AssigneeSouthwest Research Institute
InventorsJames D. Walker, Dennis L. Orphal
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A reactive armor structure having an outer layer and a reactive element adjacent to and integral with the outer layer is provided. The reactive element provides an amount of support to the outer layer effective to restrain movement of the outer layer and to delay fracture of the outer layer when the outer layer is impacted by a projectile.
Claims24
An armor structure comprising:
- at least one protective outer layer;
- a reactive layer backing the outer layer, the reactive layer comprising a reactive material;
- having a predetermined detonation velocity calculated to maintain pressure in the region of the outer layer for a period of time sufficient to provide support to the outer layer, such that the onset of fracture of the outer layer by the projectile is delayed in comparison to an armor structure without the reactive layer.
An armor structure comprising:
- at least one protective outer layer having a front surface and a back surface,
- a reactive layer adjacent to said back surface of said outer layer, said reactive layer adapted to increase the stiffness of said outer layer in response to impact of a projectile in an amount effective to delay fracture of said outer layer, wherein said fracture is delayed for about 1 microsecond up to a time (t) where t = length of said projectile the muzzle velocity of said projectile .
An armor structure comprising:
- at least one protective outer layer;
- a reactive layer backing the outer layer, the reactive layer comprising a reactive material having a complex burn path effective to increase the overall detonation time of said reactive material, such that fracture of the outer layer is delayed in comparison to an armor structure without the reactive layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.