COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University has received a five-year contract from the U.S. Army worth up to $5.5 million to develop a soft-body-armor materials performance characterization facility, under the auspices of Dr. James Zheng, chief scientist, U.S. Army.

An initial payment of $500,000 has already been received and is being used to set up the test equipment.

The facility will characterize the performance of present and future ballistic fibers and fabrics as a function of time, temperature, humidity and stress by an accelerated test methodology based on fundamental fiber degradation mechanisms and controlling parameters, and on the physical structure of the fabric. The facility will also develop soft body armor ballistic resistant lifetime models for vest safety failure probabilities.

The research will be coordinated with the U.S. Department of Justice and also will be applied to NASA's composite over-wrapped pressure vessels in the space shuttle, the International Space Station and future space transportation vehicles. The facility's researchers also will ultimately address space criticality micrometer impacts on both NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense space assets.

The program is under the direction of Professor Roger Morgan and his colleagues, professors Terry Creasy, Xin Lin Gao, Jaime Grunlan and Ed Marotta, all from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

For more information, contact

Source: Dr. Roger Morgan


rjmorgan@tamu.edu

Reporter: Lesley Kriewald
lesleyk@tamu.edu
(979) 845-5524

News Story 1542, August 31, 2007

Direct page link:
http://engineeringnews.tamu.edu/news/1542

Main News Page