User:Derek Kohnle/sandbox

For my topic Ceramic Armor I will be adding to the history, design and introduction sections of the article.

Ceramics provide projectile resistance through their high hardness and compressive strength and are often used in applications where weight is a limiting factor due to their lightweight nature relative to metals commonly used in armors. Most commonly alumina, boron carbide, silicon carbide, and titanium diboride ceramics are used in armor but other ceramics are used.

Design
Ceramic armor comes in a variety of designs ranging from monolithic plating to systems employing three dimensional matrices. One of the first patents of ceramic armor was filed in 1967 by the Goodyear Aerospace Corp. It consisted of alumina ceramic spheres embedded into a thin aluminum sheets. These sheets were layered atop each other such that the spheres of other layers would fall within the spaces between spheres of the surrounding layers in a manner similar to a body-centered cubic packing structure. The remaining gaps were then filled with a polyurethane foam and the entire system was then given a thick aluminum backing to hold it together. This development demonstrated the effectiveness of matrix based design and thus spurred the development of other matrix based systems. Other matrix based designs can be included however, the main theme among the designs is the use of a ceramic based system with a backing composed of some non-armor dedicated alloy. Many of these designs can include systems employing cylindrical, hexagonal, or spherical ceramic pieces. Monolithic plate armor is also available. These come in the form of single plates of an advance ceramic slipped into a traditional ballistic vest in place of a steel plate.

History
Ceramic armor has been in use by the US military since the Vietnam war although the first testing that demonstrated the potential ceramics had was in 1918. Major Neville Monroe-Hopkins found that by adding a thin layer of enamel, the ballistic properties of steel were greatly increased. Helicopters frequently came under small arms fire from small scale assaults which put the crews in greater danger. In 1965, ceramic body armor was given to the crews as well as ‘hard-faced composite’ armor kits placed within the pilot seats to offer better protection. Building off of this, the following year, monolithic ceramic vests and airframe-mounted armor panels where employed. These improvements are estimated to have decreased fatalities by 53% and the incident of non-fatal injuries by 27% in "Huey" helicopters. This was the first battle use of ceramic armor by any military.