by Vince Daliessio
From BoingBoing;
Transparent Armor
The US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is testing a new kind of transparent armor, clear aluminum that can stop hardcore .30 and .50 caliber armor-piercing bullets.
That's great news - an even better high-tech armor that our comically-misnamed "Defense Department" can fail to supply our troops with!most ceramics are transparent - its pores or crytallinity that usually make them opaque. cool stuff!
Maybe it's "transparent" in the same way that stealth vehicles are "invisible." Bua, ha, ha, ha!
But seriously, technology is not the solution to American servicemen being blown up. The military by its very nature is a miniature Soviet-style economy where there are no price signals and therefore no way of assuring that goods find their way to the most needed uses. Instead, allocation is determined by political clout.
Yeah, I spotted that - they did too, apparently, since it was corrected the next time I read the BoingBoing article; aluminum oxynitride...ALONtm is a ceramic compound with a high compressive strength and durability. When polished, it is the premier transparent armor for use in armored vehicles, said. 1st Lt. Joseph La Monica, transparent armor sub-direction lead "The substance itself is light years ahead of glass," he said, adding that it offers "higher performance and lighter weight." Traditional transparent armor is thick layers of bonded glass. The new armor combines the transparent ALONtm piece as a strike plate, a middle section of glass and a polymer backing. Each layer is visibly thinner than the traditional layers. ALONtm is virtually scratch resistant, offers substantial impact resistance, and provides better durability and protection against armor piercing threats, at roughly half the weight and half the thickness of traditional glass transparent armor, said the lieutenant.
how can a metal be transparent when electrons are so mobile? Its impossible! Its not aluminum, its alumina - a ceramic with AL and SiO2.
