This is just cool as hell :

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123012131

http://www.afrlhorizons.com/Briefs/Sept03/ML0303.html

Jimmy Doohan would be proud...

 

indeed scotty would be proud nice find!

 

this was one of the more far-fetched things from star trek.

This is a truly amazing discovery.

maybe they'll make the next NSX out of it. It would be invisible! sort of.

 

I think warp speed is a bit more far fetched.

 

It's not aluminum metal, though. It's an aluminum ceramic (or, more correctly, a ceramic with alumina (aluminum oxide)) - this isn't nearly the same as the metal commonly used for automobiles and window frames and the like.

I am surprised they're using it for armor since ceramics are decent when hot but in the cold, they tend to crack easily (ie, poor impact resistance). You usually need to add in other materials for low-temp strength, materials that would not allow the material to be transparent. I'll be interested to see how this armor fares in cold-weather testing. It'd suck to be in Afghanistan and get destroyed by a projectile that would normally be stopped by "classical" armor.

 

Theyve been using ceramic composites as armor for the longest time. Body armor are basically composite ceramic plates inserted into "plate carriers" (bullet proof vests and etc). They seem to do fine in all sorts of temperatures.

And regarding transparent aluminum. Old news. They've had samples way in '96. although this is the first time I've actually read about someone putting it to use.

 

I understand that. However, those body armor ceramics aren't transparent like these ones. I've worked with alumina in ceramics - as previously stated, to keep the ceramic stable (that's a relative term, of course) at lower temperatures, we had to add quite a few different things to keep it from fracturing. The project I was working on was a cermet material for a drill bit for the Mars space probe, just in case you're wondering...

They may have solved the low-temp issue while maintaining transparency - we'll see - but I don't think this product is quite the "be all and end all" of the armor world (yet).

And again, you say "transparent aluminum". Alumina or aluminum? They're different. Alumina is aluminum oxide. Aluminum is a pure metal (aluminum alloy is not, of course). They're not one and the same and I'm pretty sure they haven't made transparent aluminum yet. I can almost guarantee that what you're reading has been misinterpreted and they've replaced aluminA with aluminUM.

If you're talking "alumina", they've had it a lot sooner than '96 since it's found in natural form in natural sapphires and rubies (corundum, really), which just happen to be transparent. Of course, those materials often have iron or titanium for coloring as well, so you could theoretically say that it's rare to have pure alumina in natural form like this.

 

Ok I won't argue with you there.