ARMOR DESIGNS PIONEERS NEW CONCEPT IN SYNTHETIC ARMOR DESIGNS
By James St. Ville MD
Armor Designs Inc. is pioneering a new concept in synthetic armor design and manufacture. The days of conventional synthetic composite material design and manufacturing are rapidly becoming something of the past. ADI is utilizing a proprietary and patented composite material manufacturing methodology called “Volumetrically Controlled Manufacturing” (“VCM”) to launch the first ever rapid prototyping design and manufacturing program for optimized synthetic armor materials and thus position ADI to be a key supplier of armor material solutions to systems integrators worldwide.
The Company is located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA and is a publicly traded company on the London AIM (stock symbols ADID and ADIS) exchange. They have assembled an elite team of scientists and engineers, collectively known as the “Scorpion Works” team, to focus exclusively on armor designs and expedited commercialization. ADI has on site capabilities to custom design and manufacture new synthetic armor matrix materials for their clients, so that their clients can meet variable threat levels around the world. ADI is using its unique VCM process to design and manufacture armor products for the body armor, vehicle armor, energy armor, and construction armor sectors. The Company is certifying materials at a record pace.
Advantage to the War Fighter
Within a 3 month period of time ADI’s Scorpion Works has completed multiple body armor solutions for each of the following threat levels: .30 cal. non-armor piercing, .30 cal. armor piercing, .30 cal. armor piercing incendiary, and .30 cal. armor piercing Tungsten core. The advantage to the war fighter in having multiple solutions for each threat level is that the purchasing agent can assess weight, geometry, thickness, and price-point to best outfit their war fighter. Furthermore, mission specific armor can now be rapidly designed and fielded, be it due to the mission itself subjecting the war fighter to an unusual threat level or dynamic insurgent threats. Consistently around the world, war fighters need the highest level protection at the lowest weight possible and that is why ADI’ s ability to optimize these designs quickly gives them a unique capability that will be important to the war fighter in the future.
The Technology Importance and Scope
The VCM software enables ADI to have the first ever rapid prototyping capability for synthetic armor designs. Whereas many conventional composite manufacturers require a year or more to perform “trial and error” methods for new designs, ADI has reduced their design time to a matter of weeks by being able to directly calculate the 3-D recipe for the armor matrix configuration. The versatility of the VCM software enables the armor to be designed for mechanical, thermal, electro-magnetic, acoustic, and optic armor applications. This fact opens the doors for next generation armor for radiation, directed energy, transparent, heat resistant, and pressure-wave armor applications in the future. In addition, the VCM software is scalable from macro, micro, to nano levels giving ADI a unique tool to predict and control precise molecular-molecular and/or atomic-atomic deposition for armor designs in the future.
The VCM methodology is a computer intensive process, requiring use of the proprietary VCM software. It is this software that generates the precise 3-D recipe of how to assemble the various components of the composite material matrix. The software determines the proper sequencing, orientation, quantity, and material type for each application. Based on the complexity of the armor application, it often requires the use of parallel processors for solution convergence. The VCM sourcecode has been ported onto several defense supercomputer platforms for use when designing armor to protect our war fighters.
Since ADI’s VCM methodology enables optimization of the various