Transparent Polymer Development and Modeling for Improved Helicopter Blast/Fragmentation Barriers

This paper describes a family of new Simula-developed transparent polyurethane polymers which have improved ballistic properties. The methodology used to incorporate the new polymers into prototype helicopter blast/fragmentation barrier designs is presented, as is the resultant reduction in armor weight and/or improvement in aircrew protection. The contributions of computational modeling using advanced-shock physics codes to optimize armor performance are discussed. Improvements in polymer properties and processability offer a great deal of promise to reduce the manufacturing cost of the barriers. Armor systems which exploit the new polymer technology can provide aircrew protection in extremely weight-critical systems such as the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, and can become direct replacement spares for the AH-64 Apache helicopter.