According to a Russian satellite network report on January 15, Rostec weapons sources said that the Russian army’s future “Century” individual equipment will rely on special materials to achieve record light weight and at the same time its degree of protection. Will exceed all existing body armor. According to information released by Russia, the “Centennial” can stop shrapnel flying at a speed of 670 meters per second. It has excellent protection and can also offset the impact of a strike, thereby reducing the probability of soldiers suffering internal organ damage due to impact. .
In order to enhance the survival rate of soldiers in future wars, the militaries of major countries generally distribute protective equipment such as body armor to the army on a large scale, and the popularity of body armor continues to rise. The principle of body armor is also very simple, which is to improve the strength as much as possible while obtaining better wearability and comfort by improving new materials.
A dense network of fibers is similar to a football goal net. No matter where the projectile hits the net, its impact will be absorbed by the entire net. At present, the mainstream materials for body armor include Kevlar fiber, carbon fiber and high-strength PE fiber. Among the three, high-strength PE fiber is the most promising material. Russia’s latest body armor design relies on this material. .
High-strength PE fiber that is “as thin as paper and as hard as steel”
The core technology of body armor equipment is material, and the Russian army’s “100-person leader” The series of materials is high-strength PE fiber, which is ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber. Although polyethylene is often used as a synonym for plastic, the gap between ultra-high molecular polyethylene fiber and plastic materials is very huge. Ultra-high molecular polyethylene fiber is the toughest fiber in the world, and its strength is 15 times that of steel. , compared with Kevlar fiber, which is widely used to make body armor, its strength is also 2 times higher, and its protective performance is naturally much better than ordinary Kevlar fiber body armor.
In addition, this material is not only extremely strong, but also extremely light. Its unit density is only 0.97 g/cubic centimeter. Since this density is smaller than water, body armor made of this material is thrown into the water. can float on the water.
Some people use eight words to describe the characteristics of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber, that is, “light as paper and as hard as steel”. This description should be said to be appropriate and fully meets the requirements for the robustness and weight of military body armor materials. .
The high performance of this material is also reflected in the export embargo in Western countries. As early as the 1990s, the United States, Japan, the Netherlands and some Western countries that produce this type of fiber clearly stipulated that social Communist countries have implemented technological blockades and arms product embargoes, and the embargoed list includes ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber. It can be seen that being able to produce this kind of material is also a manifestation of national technology.
However, after Russia is able to manufacture such materials, the Russian military may quickly convert the materials into high-end military supplies.
The history of fiber use in body armor
In the 1960s, the American DuPont Company developed a new type of aramid fiber composite material – aramid 1414. DuPont commercialized this material in 1972 and trademarked it as Kevlar. Kevlar fiber is mainly divided into two types: para-aramid fiber (PPTA) and meta-aramid fiber (PMIA).
Kevlar is stronger than carbon fiber and lighter than carbon fiber. The US military took the lead in using Kevlar to make body armor and developed two models, light and heavy. As a result, DuPont in the United States once occupied more than half of the global market share of body armor materials. In the 1980s, the United States restricted DuPont from exporting this material to my country. For this reason, my country began to develop chemical fiber materials early. .
The emergence of ultra-high performance carbon fiber has broken the concept that traditional carbon fiber cannot be used in the field of bulletproof due to its small elongation at break. It has begun to be used in new military bulletproof equipment, which is of great significance to the improvement of advanced weapons and equipment. .
Of course, in addition to this, liquid bulletproof materials (TBS), carbon nanotubes, graphene, compressed glassy carbon, artificial spider silk, etc. can all be used as bulletproof materials.
It is worth mentioning that in 2017, CCTV Finance released this set of data: 70% of the world’s body armor is made in China. The reason is that my country’s body armor materials mainly use ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber. At present, mainstream bulletproof equipment such as bulletproof vests and bulletproof inserts also use this material.
Since China began research on ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers in 1985, Donghua University (formerly China Textile University) and Yancheng Ultra-Strong Polymer Materials Engineering Technology Research Institute have successively joined the research and development ranks and achieved a A series of major theoretical breakthroughs, including breakthroughs in key production technologies in 1999. At present, my country’s ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber output is large, the industrial chain is complete, and the market industry is healthy. Many bulletproof vest manufacturers can even produce ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber themselves. Therefore, body armor…��The cost is relatively low, and it is not surprising that it accounts for more than half of the global share.
The expanded application of high-strength PE fiber
In addition to the normal manufacturing of body armor, Bekhan Ozdoyev, industrial director of the weapons department of Rostec, said: It was pointed out that the possibility of adding a powered titanium exoskeleton to the composition of the “Hundred Man Leader” should be considered.
To put it simply, it uses a powered exoskeleton system and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber material. On the one hand, the mechanical exoskeleton system can provide strong power support for soldiers, but relying solely on alloy plates to bear the protection may cause the cost and weight to seriously exceed standards, resulting in a decrease in flexibility of the soldiers instead of an increase.
If a mechanical alloy exoskeleton is used, the alloy plates are used to protect important parts, and ultra-high molecular polyethylene fiber materials that are lighter and easier to fold are used to protect the remaining parts. Get better results.
In fact, even the addition of 2mm high-performance materials can significantly improve the protective performance without placing too much additional burden on soldiers. This idea can be said to be a comprehensive consideration. In terms of cost, performance and practicality, future exoskeleton systems are likely to adopt design ideas based on composite manufacturing of multiple materials.
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