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Chemical engineering keeps making great advances. A US company has developed a gel like substance that can be applied to kevlar jackets or other garments and can protect from projectiles and stabbings. The material is made out of some polymer and nano sized bits of sand or glass. It gets hard if there is an impulse applied to it and then goes back to gel after the energy dissipates.
Chemical engineering keeps making great advances. A US company has developed a gel like substance that can be applied to kevlar jackets or other garments and can protect from projectiles and stabbings. The material is made out of some polymer and nano sized bits of sand or glass. It gets hard if there is an impulse applied to it and then goes back to gel after the energy dissipates.
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Initially, Wagner and his collaborators envisioned armor that could be spread on a person, almost like peanut butter on bread, says Eric Wetzel, a researcher at the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Md. But in tests co-sponsored by the Army Lab, they found that the materials worked best when painted on Kevlar in ultrathin coats. By holding the fibers tight like a flexible glue, the compound spreads out the impact of a blow better than fibers alone. "The search in the past has been for stronger and stronger filaments," says Wetzel. "We've tried to change how the fabric interacts with the projectile." The liquid has other pluses. It's lighter than Kevlar and other widely used fabrics. That means Armor Holdings' new vests, in which the substance would be sandwiched between layers of ballistic fibers, might be lighter than current versions, which weigh four pounds or more. It also should be cheaper to manufacture, says Schiller. The Jacksonville (Fla.) company wants to continue to sell entry-level garments for $500 to $600.