[omegaman]

Interesting article with some Star Trek Trivia

http://science.howstuffworks.com/tra...num-armor3.htm

[wade8069]

Lol, that's hilarious.

[Akula2ssn]

It's come a long way from the cloudy semi-translucent stuff over a decade ago.

[MrQ1701]

Originally Posted by omegaman

Interesting article with some Star Trek Trivia

http://science.howstuffworks.com/tra...num-armor3.htm

Is this for real? I was looking for the date this was published to see if it was an April fool's joke or something. If it is real, then that stuff is pretty damn impressive. Stopping a .50 cal round is no small matter. The means to make this armor and the "recipe" should remain a secret. I wouldn't want our enemies to start equipping their vehicles with this stuff. I know it is costly at this point, but it won;t remain that way forever.

[TGElder]

Originally Posted by MrQ1701

Is this for real? I was looking for the date this was published to see if it was an April fool's joke or something. If it is real, then that stuff is pretty damn impressive. Stopping a .50 cal round is no small matter. The means to make this armor and the "recipe" should remain a secret. I wouldn't want our enemies to start equipping their vehicles with this stuff. I know it is costly at this point, but it won;t remain that way forever.

Everything I've seen about this stuff is for real. I've not come across anything to debunk it yet.

Apparently there are two types of transparent aluminum. The first being this polished ceramic, and the second actually being transparent aluminum as noted in this piece:http://www.physorg.com/news167925273.html

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by MrQ1701

Is this for real? I was looking for the date this was published to see if it was an April fool's joke or something. If it is real, then that stuff is pretty damn impressive. Stopping a .50 cal round is no small matter. The means to make this armor and the "recipe" should remain a secret. I wouldn't want our enemies to start equipping their vehicles with this stuff. I know it is costly at this point, but it won;t remain that way forever.

It's been in the works for at least a few years now over at Wright-Patterson AFB where the Air Force does testing of a lot of stuff.

Here's the old article from the Air Force website:

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123012131

It's not actually a terribly new thing. Transparent ceramics such as transparent aluminum oxide have been around since the 1960s or 1970s. I think it's only recently that engineers and chemists have been able to alloy it with other materials to develop stronger materials with the desired optical properties. Used to transparent aluminum was still very cloudy even when it was like wafer thin, now you can make it almost like glass and thicker.

[mmoore]

So was it the Plexicorp guy who invented it or not? Enquiring minds want to know ...