Armor
One of Hurtubise's latest projects has been the creation of a new paste that he's called 1313 and believes could be put to good military use. It is a mixture of all his previous concoctions applied to a kevlar fiber pad and then subjected to high pressure for the period of a day in a press. The result is a board or tile-like panel. The panel is placed in layers with other materials such as tiles. The resulting composite material can withstand a direct assault by shotgun slugs, rifle fire, and enough high explosive to demolish a car, yet is quite inexpensive to manufacture.
At an enthusiastic demonstration taped by Daily Planet, Hurtubise displayed its capability to a Canadian military observer. In one of Hurtubise's demonstrations, the composite material was placed in cushions meant to be placed over the outside of a Humvee. In the tests, the material successfully blocked explosive charges greater than those of a rocket propelled grenade, although they were not shaped charges, and was able to block shot after shot on exactly the same point of impact by a sniper rifle (which is a feat no material in use by the U.S. nor any other military has matched in public demonstrations).
It is Hurtubise's desire to see military vehicles, currently in service in Afghanistan, equipped with such protection in order to stand up to a landmine explosion, which has already claimed the lives of Canadian soldiers serving there. That, along with his younger brother serving in the Canadian military, inspired the creation of 1313.
Fire PasteFirepaste is a white paste that, when dry, is flame and heat resistant. It has a consistency and texture similar to clay when wet, and dries to become like a gray ceramic that looks like concrete. The impetus for firepaste came from a failed fire test with the Ursus Mark VII where the metal exoskeleton heated up, popped the air bags and left Hurtubise with numerous burns. Like Project Grizzly, Hurtubise has tested the material on himself. For a dramatic demonstration for the media and the military in summer 2004, he made a thin mask of the material, put it over his face, and aimed a specialized blowtorch at thousands of degrees directly at the mask. The temperature was intentionally much hotter than the temperatures reached by the Space Shuttle on reentry. A thermometer located between his face and the mask measured no appreciable temperature change below the mask after nearly ten minutes, and the integrity of the material stood strong.
Hurtubise is protective of ingredients for his concoction, but during a segment aired on Discovery Channel's daily news show Daily Planet, he revealed one secret to be Diet Coke. Images from electron microscopes show that the particles in the paste are very porous, which makes it a good insulator. Other tests showed the paste contained lithium and bromine, bound into compounds in the paste. Microscopically, it looks like a diatom absorbent, such as kitty-litter or any common industrial oil absorbent.
The material is capable of resisting flames intentionally much hotter than the space shuttle re-entry, which is hotter than
1650 °C (3000 °F) , and as such the wearers of the suit are capable of surviving direct hits from napalm and other incendiary material for extended periods of time. Napalm, used both in flamethrowers and explosives, can reach temperatures up to 2200 degrees Fahrenheit, and thermite, phosphorous, and oxyacetylene can reach temperatures up to 4000 degrees, all of which present very little problem to the wearer of the suit.
Although, their weapons and accessories may be damaged if they are not contained in similar materials.
Application to the Suit
The armor is essentially based off of the Trojan S series suit, except for the ergonomics. While pleasing in terms of performance against projectiles and for over-all unit protection, the armor was lacking in ergonomics and camouflage, and did not meet the military's basic requirement in many criteria. As well, the armor contained many design choices choices by the creator that were considered to be both superfluous and inhibiting to the user, many of which could be very easily fixed.
As a result, the armor, while being made out of the same material, and even proportioned similarly, is of a much different physical design. The armor is designed to be much more ergonomic, being capable of using different types of camouflage, removes previous design issues (such as integrated lights, a watch, and a place for pepper spray, which pepper spray is illegal in warfare), and covers all the joints. The joints for the armor is made out of plates, and designed much the way that knight armor is, in that the "plates" of armor are designed to slide over each other during movement. As well, the back of the suit is armored, while in many previous models of the Trojan suit, they were not.
While the type of foam developed for the suit is mostly the same,
impact gel has been added. The Impact gel helps reduce the blunt force trauma experienced by the user, in hopes of almost eliminating it. Impact gel has been known to be capable of supporting the force of cars and hammers without experiencing large deformations of changes to the object positioned underneath it. Impact gel is also used in the insole of the boots of the armor, to help reduce the pressure exerted on the feet yes.
ALON (Aluminium oxynitride)
Aluminium oxynitride (AlON) is a transparent ceramic composed of aluminium, oxygen and nitrogen. It is marketed under the name ALON and described in U.S. Patent 4,520,116. It is 4 times harder than fused silica glass, and 85% as hard as sapphire. The material remains solid up to 1,200 °C (2,190 °F).
The material is used as for the crucial outer layer of experimental transparent armor being considered by the US Air Force for the windows of armored vehicles. When formed and polished as a window, the material currently (2005) costs about US$10 to US$15 per square inch (~ US$20,000/m²). Other applications include semiconductor substrates and retail fixtures.
Objects are usually formed from pressed, cast or molded powder. The formed objects are then sintered (i.e., densified by heating in an oven), and polished until transparent. The polishing substantially improves the armor's impact resistance.
The material is composed of three parts, an outer layer that's exposed to gunfire and made of baked aluminum oxynitride, a middle layer of glass, and a rear layer of polymer backing.
Not only can the aluminum armor deflect rounds from small-caliber weapons and still be more clearly transparent than bullet-resistant glass that's been shot, it also passes a much more important test -- it resists .50-caliber armor-piercing bullets and anti-aircraft weapons that typically use .30-caliber rounds. This is an impressive feat, especially since it's half the weight and thickness of traditional transparent armor.
This material is used for all and any transparent parts of the armor, including the face mask.
