Impact Resistant Protective Materials For Increased Safety In Hostile Environments

Abstract

Disclosed is an improved anti-ballistic impact resistant protective material including a combination of at least a fronting material and a hard backing material wherein the fronting material is measured to be at least 25% softer in the Brinell scale than the hard backing material and methods of fabrication techniques, thicknesses, densities, areal density, localized placement of constituent materials, and temporal processing, thereby yielding a superior protective combination increasing the impact threat resistive performance at an aggregate areal density lower than the mass increase that would have been required by simply increasing the thickness of the harder backing material alone to achieve increased threat resistive performance. Further, a hardened iron based alloy in excess of 535 Brinell that performs with a bulge, crack, petal failure mechanism is disclosed.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method to create an impact resistant protective material for increased safety in hostile environments, comprising:
 providing a hardened backing material with protective properties whose construction includes any combinations of the fabrication techniques, thickness, density, areal density, localized placement of constituent materials, and/or temporal processing to optimize performance of the hardened backing material which could be used singularly to resist impact from attack by ballistic, blast, sonic, directed energy, or similar harmful threats designed to penetrate the material and adversely affect the environment behind the hardened backing material;   providing a fronting material, measured to be at least 25% softer in the Brinell scale than the hard backing material, whose construction includes any combinations of the fabrication techniques, thickness, density, areal density, localized placement of constituent materials, and/or temporal processing, and singularly has lower resistance to impact from attack by ballistic, blast, sonic, directed energy, or similar harmful threats designed to penetrate the material and adversely affect the environment that the hardened backing material; and   assembling the fronting material to the backing material to create a protective combination that increases the impact threat resistive performance at an aggregate areal density lower than the mass increase that would have been required by simply increasing the thickness of the harder backing material alone to achieve the combination's increased threat resistive performance.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  in which the back plate and front plate are assembled together using bolts, rivets, screws, clamping, brazing, dissimilar metal welding, adhesives, or epoxies. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  which employs an aluminum alloy as the fronting plate. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  which employs plastic, epoxy, rubber, polymer, or other soft materials as the fronting plate. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  which employs a titanium alloy as the fronting plate. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1  which uses combinations of material selected from the group of aluminum, titanium, plastic, epoxy, rubber, polymer, and other soft materials as the fronting plate. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1  further including at least one perforated material as the fronting plate. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the impacting blast fragment is blunted by the soft front plate which then induces the fragment to deform by flattening the front of the fragment to peel back to form a mushroom shape and shred during deformation, increasing its frontal surface area, and spreading out the impact forces by distributing the forces over a larger area making localized forces impacting the protective surface lower reducing loading pressure which makes it easier to defeat the threat. 
     
     
         9 . The method in  claim 1  in which the perforated fronting material acts to contain and mitigate the spread of the shattered remains of the impacting threat forces. 
     
     
         10 . The method in  claim 8  in which the perforated fronting material is aluminum and a polymer coating is applied to the adhere the aluminum to the hard backing plate and encapsulate the assembly. 
     
     
         11 . An article which acts as an impact resistant protective material for increased safety against impacting forces in hostile environments, comprising:
 an iron based alloy in excess of 535 Brinell hardness whose incoming energy absorption defeat mechanism employs the highest energy absorbing physical mechanics of bulge, crack, and petal to absorb and dissipate the energy from the impacting force.   
     
     
         12 . The article of  claim 11  in which the article is comprised of a singular piece of iron based alloy that is 0.020″ to 1.500″ thick. 
     
     
         13 . The article of  claim 11  in which the article is comprised of multiple pieces, or layers, of the iron based alloy stacked together in which the front piece/layer upon being impacted by a force will degrade the impacting force distributing the impact energy at a diameter/size larger than the impacting force followed by the residual impact forces causing a bulge, crack, and petal in the subsequently impacted layer. This pattern of impacting force degradation, bulge, crack, petal will continue to absorb impacting forces through each layer of the article until the energy is fully dissipated by subsequent pieces/layers or the forces penetrate through the final piece/layer. 
     
     
         14 . The article of  claim 11  in which the iron based alloy plate causes the impacting force of an explosive blast fragment, depicted as a fragmentation simulating penetrator known as an FSP, which upon impact causes the fragment's leading contact surface have material removed to change its form and peel back similar to how a banana's outer layer peels back to expose the inner, edible portion. While the outer surface of the FSP peels and folds back, the internal part of the fragment, representative of the edible banana, disintegrates on impact with the iron based alloy plate. 
     
     
         15 . The article of  claim 11  in which the iron based alloy is carbon steel, alloy steel, stainless steel, super alloys, or phosphoric iron.