CHARACTERIZATION OF METALLIC/ULTRA HIGH MOLECULAR WEIGHT POLYETHYLENE (UHMWPE) HYBRIDS FOR POTENTIAL MASS EFFICIENT IMPACT RESISTANCE

摘要

A consistent impetus for research in the Army community is to identify, assess, and where possible, exploit the potential advantages of both known and emerging materials to provide (directly or indirectly) a strategic advantage. Among the most critical of these is removing as much weight from an end system as possible. Weight extraction, without sacrificing functionality and performance, significantly improves mobility, sustainability, deployment speed, logistics, and on an ergonomic and physiological level, the overall endurance and reduced risk of injury of a warfighter. Advanced materials, such as polymer composites, have demonstrated the type of technologies needed to achieve some of these weight reduction goals. Increasingly, however, it is through prudent combination of materials - such as polymer composites with ceramics or metals - that are yielding a more robust set of desired properties. The current research is exploring the hybridization of magnesium alloys with ultra high molecular weight polyethylene to provide an improved impact resistance to projectiles of different velocities. Key technology barriers are identified, including challenges of effectively bonding these highly dissimilar materials, and developing criteria for balancing each constituent for a specific set of requirements. Testing includes both impact and ballistic excitation of the hybrid system. Subsequent displacement fields are captured with digital image correlation (DIC). Potential application of this research, including application to warfighter head protection, is discussed.