There was a point in time when sheer firepower or having a gun proved to be the deciding factor in a straight up “fight” between two people, and if you had a knife, surely you would be picked off from a distance in the sight of a sharpshooter. Well, bullet-proof armor has certainly come a long way, and this time around, we have a special metal foam armor which is said to disintegrate incoming bullets.
As you can see in the YouTube video above, the armor plating, that is made partly from composite metal foams, also known as CMFs, happen to be not only lighter, but also stronger compared to the kind of traditional metal plating that sees action in a range of body and vehicle armor.
Afsaneh Rabiei, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at N.C. State, had invested a few years to develop CMFs as well as to look into their rather unique properties. As for the bullet that simply fell apart upon impact in the video, it is a 7.62 x 63 millimeter M2 armor-piercing projectile, and was fired via standard testing procedures which the Department of Justice established when it comes to evaluating armor types.
The armor itself was just an inch thick, and it boasts of a ceramic strike face, Kevlar backing, and CMFs that comprise of the energy-absorbing layer right smack in the middle. Stopping bullets are not all the CMF can do, as CMF plating does have potential applications when it boils down to space travel and transporting nuclear waste.
Filed in . Read more about Science. Source: news.discovery