Army researchers, alliance partners create newly designed protection materials

By Courtesy Dr. Victor Nakano, Johns Hopkins UniversityOctober 15, 2018

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TOWSON, Md. -- The Materials in Extreme Dynamic Environments Collaborative Research Alliance, or MEDE CRA, conducted its annual fall meeting Oct. 10. During the meeting, the group showcased a newly-designed ceramic material a newly-designed composite material.

Johns Hopkins University is the lead research organization for the alliance. 130 people participated in the meeting, including principal investigators and students from consortium institutions and researchers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

Special guests hailed from the United Kingdom's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory; the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Command; and members of the MEDE science advisory board.

Professor K.T. Ramesh from Johns Hopkins University and Dr. John Beatty from ARL led the meeting, which focused on technical collaboration across the alliance and program planning for the upcoming year.

"It is exciting to see our integrated models coming to fruition and closing our materials-by-design loop," Beatty said.

Highlighting the event was the unveiling of the first iteration of newly designed ceramic (composed of boron carbide) and composite (composed to S-2 glass and epoxy resin) materials. A materials-by-design strategy that focuses on the key mechanisms in high-strain-rate and high-stress regimes was used to create these materials. The underpinning science for these materials will lead to improved protection for Soldiers and military vehicles.

The meeting also included overview presentations from representatives of the three material research groups as well as poster presentations by both consortium principal investigators and ARL collaborators.

"This meeting is a great forum to network with researchers across the MEDE program," said Cyril Williams of ARL.

The MEDE CRA is an integral part of ARL's Enterprise for Multiscale Research of Materials, officials said. The objective of the alliance is to develop the capability to design, optimize and fabricate material systems exhibiting revolutionary performance in extreme dynamic environments.

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The U.S. Army Research Laboratory is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to ensure decisive overmatch for unified land operations to empower the Army, the joint warfighter and our nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.

Related Links:

Weapons and Materials Research Directorate

U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command

U.S. Army Research Laboratory

Army Modernization