Flammability Characteristics of Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials for theComposite Infantry Fighting Vehicle

摘要

The use of composites in Army systems as a means of decreasing weight andenhancing survivability, without reducing personnel safety, has been considered for sometime. The U.S. Army Materials Technology Laboratory (MTL) has successfully demonstrated, in an earlier program, that a ground vehicle turret could be fabricated from fiber-reinforced composite material. That technology has now been applied to the fabrication of a composite vehicle hull. Organic polymers are one of the major constituents of fiber-reinforced composites. As components of military systems, these materials are expected to survive combustion and pyrolysis processes associated with fires. It is thus necessary to develop an understanding of the flammability behavior of composite materials in the early design stages of a military vehicle such as the Composite Infantry Fighting Vehicle (CIFV). The present study attempts to characterize the flammability behavior of composite materials associated with the CIFV Hull Program in terms of accepted fire resistance parameters. (JS)