A breakthrough by National Research Council scientists could help the United States military build a proposed Iron Man-style suit for its soldiers — and give Canadian firms a competitive advantage in the $30-billion global market for protective personal equipment and armoured vehicles.
For the past few years, the NRC has been doing research on boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs), a lightweight but exceptionally durable new material.
BNNTs have unique structural, electronic and optical qualities — including transparency and greater stability — that give them advantages over carbon nanotubes, used to strengthen products such as baseball bats, golf clubs and car parts. But until recently, no one had been able to produce them in large quantities.
The NRC has now developed a new technology that produces BNNTs 100 to 1,000 times faster than anyone else in the world, said André Parent, who works in the agency’s security and disruptive technologies section.
The breakthrough means BNNTs, for the first time, could be scaled up for mass production.
“We are in the forefront of the pack here,” Parent said. “Being able to establish that this is viable in mass production is a key element.”
Parent noted that the U.S. army is working on a weaponized robotic exoskeleton called TALOS (Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit) not unlike the suit worn by Robert Downey Jr. in the popular Iron Man movies.
Plans for U.S. military armour have drawn comparison’s to the comic book and movie hero Iron Man.
The bulletproof suit would provide dramatically increased strength with greater ballistic protection for soldiers. Some high-risk military units could get the suit as early as 2018.
One major challenge is to make the suit light enough for soldiers to wear comfortably. That’s where BNNTs could help, Parent suggested.
Body or vehicle armour made with BNNTs should be about 25 per cent lighter than that made with current materials, such as Kevlar. It would also cost far less to produce, Parent said.
“Being able to have protection and reduce the weight of everything becomes a very important issue,” he said.
The NRC is now working with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) to develop, with industry partners, next-generation body armour and vehicle armour for the lucrative international security and defence market.
While the military is the obvious customer, police and other first responders would be attracted by the lighter-weight armour as well, Parent said.
BNNTs could be used to make transparent armour to protect soldiers’ faces or for use in windows on armoured vehicles, said Perry Mangione, the NRC’s director of business development. It could also have applications for space programs.
In recent years, the NRC has been reorganized to focus more on research that can be commercialized by industry.
In this project, the objective is to help a Canadian company become a mass producer of BNNTs, which it would supply to companies that make body and vehicle armour systems and subsystems, Mangione said. “We’re trying to kick-start that whole ecosystem.”
Parent said the NRC and DRDC already have industry partners lined up, but wouldn’t say who they were. About 40 NRC staff, mostly based in Ottawa, are working on the project.
Parent couldn’t predict how long it might take to begin producing armour using the new material. “It could go relatively fast, or it could demand a lot of development,” he said. But Mangione said some products could be in production “in a small number of years.”
