Engineers at Michigan’s U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) are working on a way to take the armor seen on “Iron Man” from the comic book page and movie screen to the real life battlefield.
According to AMC’s SciFi scanner, a team is testing smart armor that could make the movie suit a reality.
TARDEC is using piezoelectrics to make armor intelligent. It can relay information about its condition to a remote system in real time, identify the size of bullets shot at it and generate electrical power upon impact.
“As a kid, everyone played those video games that showed you how much armor you had left as a percentage bar,” says John Wray, a TARDEC contractor. “That’s exactly what we’re working on here and more.”
Data about the armor’s integrity shows up on a monitor and is color coded so it’s easy to understand: Green means you’re good to go, black points out damage and red spots are where you’ve been hit. “If you know that one side of the armor is weakening, you could turn the vehicle to protect that side,” said Thomas Meitzler, a researcher at TARDEC.
Each plate has two piezeoelectric sensors attached to it. When an electric current flows into one sensor it turns it into mechanical energy in the form of a tiny vibration that ripples through the armor plate. The other piezoelectric device takes that mechanical vibration and turns it back into electrical energy. If the armor has been damaged some of the current released into the armor won’t be picked up on the other end, and by measuring just how much energy is lost, the TARDEC scientists can determine how damaged the armor is.
The armor has been tested in lab conditions and could be used to create armor similar to what Tony Stark uses in the movie. The next step is to test the armor in the field.
Pictures! Dang it! I need pictures to drool on!
Not sure what this has to do with Iron Man
Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials to generate an electric field or electric potential in response to applied mechanical stress. You hit it and sparks fly (this is already used in some cigarette lighters)
This article is just some guys who want to wafer this material into normal armor so it can generate electricity to report on the damage the armor has sustained.
Kind of useful for things like tanks or planes, but really has nothing to do with body suit armor at all.
Any way – who would want to wear a suit that when hit real hard has the potential to fry you ? 🙂