Protections against Ballistic impacts by Cavitation – PROBALCAV

During the CACHMAP project, experimental and data processing methods have been developed. The phenomena were identified in the measurements obtained. After having demonstrated the principle of cavitation phenomena, the present project proposes to proceed to the next step which consists in proposing an assembly for the purpose of ballistic protection, much more lighter. The consortium wishes to deal with the case of transparent ballistic protections involving the civilian and military world in multi-impact: personal protections of the combatant, protections for vehicles, protection of infrastructures etc. The various technological bricks from fluids to microstructures would be integrated into a set that makes it possible to perform representative ballistic tests. The objective of the project is to obtain a ballistic plate including the concept of transparent cavitating armor offering a reduction of at least 20% compared to a solution against the threats of Level 1 and 2 of the STANAG 4569 or level EN 166-A for personal protection masks and visors (stop of a steel ball of 6mm diameter and 0.86g mass launched at 190m.s-1). The targeted applications are: - The transparent protections of the fighter to counter ballistic threats of 9 mm or fragments. These protections are currently in PMMA or Polycarbonate. The introduction of a fluid phase in a transparent assembly would reduce the weight of the protection by 20% given that PMMA is 20% heavier than water. - Protections for vehicles (windows) against 7.62 API BZ threats at level 1 and 2 at first.