A team of scientists from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology is part of an international consortium that has begun research on new stealth technology materials for warships, the Wrocław university announced on Wednesday.
The project, in which researchers from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Wrocław University of Science and Technology participate, is called ADMIRABLE, and its budget is 10 million euros. It is being carried out by a consortium consisting of shipbuilding companies and research centers. The project is financed by the European Defense Fund.
The consortium wants to develop a new material for the construction of military ships using stealth technology (a name defining methods, strategies and technologies for camouflaging military and strategic objects). Objects made using these technologies are characterized by lower detectability, for example by radars.
“In our project, we jointly intend to develop a new composite-based material that will not only provide effective protection against detection, but will also be more efficient and provide at least the same or higher ballistic resistance than steel-based materials,” emphasized Prof. Tomasz Kurzynowski, grant manager at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, quoted in the university’s press release.
He added that by using advanced manufacturing technologies, including additive techniques and composite materials, researchers from the Wrocław team intend to reduce the weight of the stealth material to about 160 kg per square meter, i.e. by about 10 percent compared to those currently used.
By reducing the weight of materials used to build ships, they will be able to develop higher speeds while consuming less energy.
The material being developed is to be created by combining several production processes. “The composite material will consist of different raw materials, e.g. metals or polymers, with different microstructural geometries for each layer and different properties, e.g. mechanical, electrical or chemical. Currently, no production technique would be able to combine their production together. Therefore, as part of our cooperation, we will also strive to develop a combined production process for this composite metamaterial, as we call it in our documentation,” explained Dr. Wojciech Stopyra, leader of the additive manufacturing team in the project.
Wrocław researchers are to create a layer of this metamaterial. It will be created using additive technologies (3D printing) from polymers, metal alloys and ceramics.
“The structure of this layer is called +sandwich+, or sandwich. On the outside, it will be covered with a high-hardness ceramic coating, the task of which will be to change the trajectory of the projectile hitting this material. Inside, there will be metal alloys in the form of lattices, i.e. a material with an openwork composition, the task of which will be to absorb the energy of the projectile's impact, i.e. to stop it,” explained Dr. Stopyra.
The final coating is to consist of polymers, and its task will be to “intercept” fragments of the bullet. “You can imagine this by recalling how a car window shatters. It does not splatter into tiny pieces because it has a layer of foil inside it that holds these small fragments,” added Prof. Kurzynowski.
The metamaterial that Wrocław scientists are working on will be able to find applications not only in the construction of military ships, but also in other structures for military purposes.
The work on the ADMIRABLE project will last three years. The consortium includes centers from Spain, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, Cyprus and Poland. The project is managed by the Spanish shipbuilding company Navantia. The consortium also includes the Italian shipbuilding company Fincantieri, the largest in Europe and fourth in the world. (PAP)
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