Look Out Below! Wingsuits Pushed for Airborne Assaults

By David Hambling

Yves Rossy, aka “Jet man” and “Fusion Man,” has grabbed headlines with his jet-powered flights with an 8-foot wing strapped to his back. But he could be joined sometime soon by commandos on an airborne assault.

Last year, Rossy successfully flew 22 miles across the English Channel. Last week’s attempt to cross from Africa to Europe by flying from Morocco to Spain was less successful. Strong winds were against him, and Rossy ended up in the sea three miles short of the coast. Undaunted, the Swiss former military pilot now plans to fly across the Grand Canyon.

Rossy has reportedly refused requests from the military and stated that his powered wing, which cost more than $190,000 to develop, is only for aviation enthusiasts. However, he’s not the only one in the wingsuit business.

The Special Parachute and Logistics Consortium, is a German venture between two companies with expertise in this area. SPELCO produces a variety of parachute systems, helmets, oxygen supplies and other gear and services. But their most eye-catching project is the Gryphon Next Generation Parachute System (PDF, pictured).

This is described as a modular upgrade for parachute systems for use in “high-altitude, high-opening” jump missions, typically carried out by Special Forces. This 6-foot wing gives a glide ratio of 5:1, which means that a drop from 30,000 feet will allow you to glide about 30 miles. The makers estimate that this would take around 15 minutes, giving an average speed of about 60 miles an hour.

“All equipment is hidden in a lifting body optimized for stealth, the radar-signature is extremely low,” says the Gryphon data sheet (PDF). “Detection of incoming Gryphon soldiers by airborne or ground radar will be extremely difficult.”

Gryphon has a guidance system and heads-up display navigation. Best of all, the company are looking at an option for bolting on small engines similar to those used in Yves Rossy’s setup. These will increase the range to more than 60 miles, but will also make it possible to cover long distances from low altitude so that the entire mission can be more stealthy.

The company does not seem to have had any public offers for Gryphon yet — although, given the nature of likely customers, those offers might be kept relatively quiet.

Wingsuits are an addition to normal parachutes that allow better gliding. A parachute has to be deployed in order to land. However, wingsuit skydivers want to overcome this and are developing techniques to land safely without a parachute. This sounds like a practically suicidal manuever, but it seems likely that in the next few years technology and the careful application of technique will make it possible to land with a wingsuit alone. It’s certainly possible from a theoretical aerodynamic point of view, but whether it’s practical may be another matter.

This might just be the future for ultrastealthy airborne assault. Aided by extremely precise instruments and a flight computer, the wingman comes in at low level and high speed, before pulling up and dropping gently to the ground at exactly the right spot. It might sound wild, but it would certainly surprise the bad guys.

Illo:  SPELCO

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/look-out-below-wingsuits-pushed-for-airbone-assaults/

New Bomb-Resistant Trucks Will Blast RPGs Before They Hit

By David Hambling

The U.S. military’s toughest trucks are getting a new layer of protection — against rocket-propelled grenades. The Army recently awarded an $8 million contract to equip MRAP (mine resistant ambush protected) armored trucks with Iron Curtain. It’s a protection system which blasts incoming rockets before they can hit the vehicle. If the system works, it could go all long way towards neutralizing one of the deadliest threats American troops face overseas.

The contract calls for the Iron Curtain with Darpa’s sniper-detection system, CROSSHAIRS. It detects and locates enemy shooters using radar and acoustic sensors, and is intended to work against Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), missiles, bullets and mortar rounds. Iron Curtain itself is currently designed to deal with RPGs; the makers Artis LLC planning future developments to deal with more challenging threats.

Iron Curtain system detects and tracks the incoming rocket with a radar, which then cues an optical sensor — a smart camera, essentially. The optical sensor identifies and classifies the threat — pinpointing the location of the rocket with an accuracy of about half an inch — and selects an aim point.

A row of explosive countermeasures is mounted on a rail running around the top of the vehicle. The system selects the best one of countermeasures, and fires it vertically downwards at the exact moment the rocket is passing. This does not destroy the warhead but ‘duds’ it so that the warhead deflagrates, rather than exploding properly. By the end of the collision of RPG and countermeasure, Artis claims, the warhead bounces off of the vehicle’s side.

In field tests mounted on uparmored Humvees, Iron Curtain has proven its effectiveness against RPGs, so the makers’ confidence is understandable. Here’s some video, from a corny-but-cool National Geographic documentary:

Iron Curtain is one of many, many competing systems for RPG protection, ranging from metal slats and bars to Kevlar airbags and missile-firing Active protection Systems. Iron Curtain is at the more sophisticated end of the spectrum, and one of its most distinctive features is how the countermeasures work.

Collateral damage is a major issue for “active” protective systems like Iron Curtain. Whatever you fire at the incoming round is going to end up somewhere, and it may do real damage. Systems that spray out shrapnel are likely to be a major hazard for anyone in the immediate vicinity. This can included dismounted troops who have just stepped out of the vehicle, or local civilians if an attack takes place in a crowded area.

One way around this is to use Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME), basically micro-shrapnel made of powdered dense metal which only travels a few feet. Another approach is to have shrapnel made of Reactive Material which burns up in the air and only gets a short distance before it complete vaporises. The Iron Curtain approach – of simply firing downwards – could be safer than either of these and should ensure that the countermeasures only hit what they’re aimed at.

It’s not clear how the system could defend against attacks from above, but the makers’ web site says that Iron Curtain “can be configured to protect almost any surface, from just the sides of a vehicle to all-around protection, including top.”

The integration with CROSSHAIRS makes this more than just a system to protect one vehicle. The aim of CROSSHAIRS is to “engage enemy shooters” with both automatic and man-in-the-loop modes. And it might even go one step further than that, according to Darpa: “Additionally, the program is investigating the feasibility of a variety of technologies to detect enemy shooters before the firing of a weapon.”

This suggests that in principle, a CROSSHAIRS-equipped vehicle with a convoy could open fire on any potential ambushers before they fire a shot. Or it might just engage them with something like a non-lethal laser dazzler, which could avert an ambush without risking shooting the wrong people.

It could be a useful capability, and one that can’t be delivered fast enough: the MRAP vehicles equipped with Iron Curtain and CROSSHAIRS should be ready for testing in Juy 2010. Meanwhile, there are also studies to integrate Iron Curtrain with Hummers and with the LAV’s operated by the Marine Corps.

Images: Artis, LLC

Follow Link for Video – http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/new-bomb-resistant-trucks-will-blast-rpgs-before-they-hit/

‘Smart’ armor learns more with every bullet

Intelligent armor generates a small voltage when bent, such as when it is hit by a bullet.

State-of-the-art armor can evaluate its own condition, relay info to soldiers

By Eric Bland

updated 2 hours, 56 minutes ago//

Smart armor being developed by scientists and engineers at U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center in Michigan can not only predict its own failure, but also identify the size of bullets shot at it and even 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,” said John Wray, a TARDEC contractor. “That’s exactly what we’re working on here and more.”

Intelligent armor is based on piezoelectrics, or materials that generate a small voltage when bent. The reverse is also true: Apply a small voltage, and a piezoelectric material will bend.

The sensors TARDEC scientists are installing on armor plates use both features. The armor itself isn’t new, but the sensors are.

Each plate of armor, whether its wrapped around a soldier’s body or a vehicle’s chassis, has two piezeoelectric sensors attached to it.

An electric current flows into one sensor and 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.

Anywhere from five to 15 volts of electricity is pumped into, and out of, an intact plate of armor. If the armor has been damaged by bullets, shrapnel or anything else, some of the current released into the armor won’t be picked up on the other end.

By measuring just how much energy is lost, the TARDEC scientists can determine how damaged the armor is.

The research into intelligent armor began several years ago, says Thomas Meitzler, a research scientist at TARDEC developing the intelligent armor. The Army approached TARDEC about finding a way to measure armor’s integrity in the field.

“Right now, there are really only two ways to evaluate the health of a vehicle’s armor,” said Meitzler. “One is to get out and manually inspect the armor. The other is to bring it to a vehicle depot for an ultrasound.” Neither option is ideal when soldiers are in the middle of a battle.

A third, real-time option was needed. Piezoelectric sensors were the answer.

The piezoelectric sensors don’t just monitor armor’s integrity. They also could help to make it stronger.

Each bullet striking the armor would create an electricity generating shock wave. It wouldn’t be much electricity, says Meitzler, certainly not enough to power the vehicle, but it would be enough to run a small sensor if enough bullets hit the armor plating.

Each bullet would create a slightly different amount of electricity as well. Complex mathematical algorithms, also being developed at TARDEC, would analyze the amount of electricity generated by a bullet’s impact and discover what kind of round was used.

A .22 caliber bullet, for example, will generate less electricity compared with a .45 caliber bullet.

The combination of knowing your opponent’s weaponry and having real-time information about the integrity of the armor could save the soldiers’ lives. “If you know that one side of the armor is weakening, you could turn the vehicle to protect that side,” said Meitzler.

Other scientists are enthusiastic about the research.

John Ohab, the Department of Defense’s new technology strategist, thought of Star Trek when he heard of the new armor sensors. “There was always damage to a certain part of the ship and a graphic that displayed what part was injured,” he said.

Armored vehicles and soldiers could be just the start, says Ohab, adding that he doesn’t see any reason why the sensors couldn’t eventually be deployed on ships or aircraft.

Vladimir Genis, a professor of applied engineering technology who also develops piezoelectric devices at Drexel University, was also impressed with the research.

“This is an absolutely excellent idea,” said Genis. “There is so much energy that simply disappears. If we can even capture a portion of that energy, we could power a multitude of electrical devices.”

© 2009 Discovery Channel

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34132832/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

A 25-Year Battery

Nuclear power: The package inside this prototype betavoltaic battery contains layers of silicon carbide and metal foil embedded with the radioactive isotope tritium. When high-energy electrons emitted by the decay of tritium hit the silicon carbide, it produces an electrical current that exits the cell through the metal pins. Such batteries are designed to last 25 years.    Credit: Widetronix

Long-lived nuclear batteries powered by hydrogen isotopes are in testing for military applications.

By Katherine Bourzac

Batteries that harvest energy from the nuclear decay of isotopes can produce very low levels of current and last for decades without needing to be replaced. A new version of the batteries, called betavoltaics, is being developed by an Ithaca, NY-based company and tested by Lockheed Martin. The batteries could potentially power electrical circuits that protect military planes and missiles from tampering by destroying information stored in the systems, or by sending out a warning signal to a military center. The batteries are expected to last for 25 years. The company, called Widetronix, is also working with medical-device makers to develop batteries that could last decades for implantable medical devices.

Widetronix’s batteries are powered by the decay of a hydrogen isotope called tritium into high-energy electrons. While solar cells use semiconductors such as silicon to capture energy from the photons in sunlight, betavoltaic cells use a semiconductor to capture the energy in electrons produced during the nuclear decay of isotopes. This type of nuclear decay is called “beta decay,” for the high-energy electrons, called beta particles, that it produces. The lifetimes of betavoltaic devices depend on the half-lives, ranging from a few years to 100 years, of the radioisotopes that power them. To make a battery that lasts 25 years from tritium, which has a half-life of 12.3 years, Widetronix loads the package with twice as much tritium as is initially required. These devices can withstand much harsher conditions than chemical batteries. This, and their long lifetimes, is what makes betavoltaics attractive as a power source for medical implants and for remote military sensing in extremely hot and cold environments.

The concept of betavoltaics is about 50 years old. The first pacemakers used betavoltaics based on the radioactive element promethium, but these betavoltaics were phased out when cheaper lithium-ion batteries were developed. The technology is now reemerging, says Peter Cabauy, CEO of another betavoltaic company, Miami-based City Labs, because semiconducting materials have improved so much. Early semiconducting materials weren’t efficient enough at converting electrons from beta decay into a usable current, so they had to use higher energy, more expensive–and potentially hazardous–isotopes. More efficient semiconducting materials can be paired with relatively benign isotopes such as tritium, which produce weak radiation.

Widetronix’s batteries are made up of a metal foil impregnated with tritium isotopes and a thin chip of the semiconductor silicon carbide, which can convert 30 percent of the beta particles that hit it into an electrical current. “Silicon carbide is very robust, and when we thin it down, it becomes flexible,” says Widetronix CEO Jonathan Greene. “When we stack up chips and foils into a package a centimeter squared and two-tenths of a centimeter high, we have a one microwatt product.” The prototype being tested by Lockheed Martin produces 25 nanowatts of power.

Betavoltaics aren’t very powerful. They don’t have nearly enough power to drive a laptop or a cell phone. But their energy density is high: they store a lot of energy in films just micrometers thick and can be made in very small packages. “We’re focusing on places where you need a very long life and energy density,” says Greene.

Article Continues – http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23959/

PICTURES: WWII “Samurai Subs” Found — Carried Aircraft

ON TV Hunt for the Samurai Subs premieres Tuesday, November 17, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. Preview Samurai Subs >>

November 12, 2009–After 60 years in a watery Hawaiian grave, two World War II-era Japanese attack submarines have been discovered near Pearl Harbor, marine archaeologists announced today. (Watch video of the sunken subs.)

Specifically designed for a stealth attack on the U.S. East Coast–perhaps targeting Washington, D.C., and New York City–the “samurai subs” were fast, far-ranging, and in some cases carried folding-wing aircraft, according to Dik Daso, curator of modern military aircraft at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, speaking in the new National Geographic documentary Hunt for the Samurai Subs.

When World War II ended in 1945, the U.S. Navy seized the Japanese fleet in the Pacific, including five samurai subs, as they’re called in the new film. The subs were later sunk, to keep the technology out of the hands of the Soviet Union.The military didn’t record where the boats had been laid to rest, thinking no one would want to know.

Since 1992 archaeologist Terry Kerby and colleagues at the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory have hunted for the samurai subs in manned submersibles. The crew found the I-401 in 2005 (pictured, a close-up of the submarine’s guns). Then, in February of this year, they found two more subs, the I-14 and I-201. The I-400–one of the largest non-nuclear submarines ever built–and the I-203 remain missing.

“It’s very moving to see objects like this underwater, because it’s a very peaceful environment, but these subs were designed for aggression,” said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hans Van Tilburg, who accompanied the expedition. The work was partially funded by the National Geographic Channel. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News and part-owns the National Geographic Channel.)

The results of the sub surveys are “information we’re sharing across the Pacific,” Van Tilburg added, noting how much has changed politically since World War II. “It’s part of that reconciliation, to do a peaceful survey of these secret weapons.”

–Christine Dell’Amore

—Image courtesy Wild Life Productions

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/photogalleries/samurai-subs-submarines-pictures/index.html

 

Long-range Taser raises fears of shock and injury

A new, long-range Taser weapon could be launched from standard 40-millimetre grenade launchers (Image: SGT April L. Johnson/US DoD)

by David Hambling

INCREASING the distance between yourself and a potentially dangerous assailant is always a good idea – even if your ultimate aim is to render them insensible. That appears to be the thinking behind a Pentagon project, now in its final stages, to perfect a projectile capable of delivering an electric shock to incapacitate a person tens of metres away. It will be fired from a standard 40-millimetre grenade launcher.

The projectile, being developed by Taser International under a $2.5 million contract, is known as a Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation or HEMI device. Taser will deliver the first prototypes for testing and evaluation early next year.

Wes Burgei, a project engineer at the US Department of Defense’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD), says the self-contained cartridges should be able to hit targets 60 metres away – more than three times the range of the existing XREP shotgun cartridge (New Scientist, 29 August, p 20).

However, the impact force of the projectile remains a worry. “There is a known risk of severe injury from impact projectiles, either from blunt force at short ranges or from hitting a sensitive part of the body,” says security researcher Neil Davison, who has recently written a book on non-lethal weapons.

Burgei, however, insists the devices are designed to deliver minimal force upon impact. “A major focus of this project is reducing the projectile’s mass and mitigating the impact forces on the target through innovative projectile-nose design,” he says. Various nose designs, which disperse the projectile’s impact force, are now being tested.

The duration of the shock which the HEMI will deliver to its target has also raised concerns. Marksmen will need time to reach the incapacitated target, and because the weapon is designed for long-range use this could be considerable.

A JNLWD reference book from 2008 suggests incapacitation times could be as long as 3 minutes, although the projectile’s range was initially planned to be much higher.

“We should be worried about undesirable effects if people are going to be subjected to bouts of prolonged incapacitation,” says Steve Wright, a specialist in non-lethal weapons at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK.

We should be worried if people are going to be subjected to bouts of prolonged incapacitation

Burgei says the duration of the shocks emitted by the projectiles has yet to be determined. “When requirements become solidified, the incapacitation time can be adjusted to meet them,” he says.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427325.600-longrange-taser-raises-fears-of-shock-and-injury.html

First Hyperlens For Sound Waves Created

The acoustic hyperlens is fashioned from 36 brass fins arranged in the shape of a hand-held fan. Each fin is approximately 20 centimeters long and three millimeters thick. (Credit: Courtesy of Xiang Zhang research group)

Ultrasound and underwater sonar devices could “see” a big improvement, thanks to development of the world’s first acoustic hyperlens. Created by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the acoustic hyperlens provides an eightfold boost in the magnification power of sound-based imaging technologies.

Clever physical manipulation of the imaging sound waves enables the hyperlens to resolve details smaller than one sixth the length of the waves themselves, bringing into view much smaller objects and features than can be detected using today’s technologies.

The key to this success is the capturing of information contained in evanescent waves, which carry far more details and higher resolution than propagating waves but are typically bound to the vicinity of the source and decay much too quickly to be captured by a conventional lens.

“We have successfully carried out an experimental demonstration of an acoustic hyperlens that magnifies sub-wavelength objects by gradually converting evanescent waves into propagating waves,” said Xiang Zhang, a principal investigator with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and director of the Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center at the University of California, Berkeley. “Our acoustic hyperlens relies on straightforward cutoff-free propagation and achieves deep subwavelength resolution with low loss over a broad frequency bandwidth.”

Zhang is the corresponding author on a paper reporting this research in the journal Nature Materials. The paper is entitled, “Experimental Demonstration of an Acoustic Magnifying Hyperlens.” Co-authoring this paper with Zhang were Jensen Li, Lee Fok, Xiaobo Yin and Guy Bartal.

Zhang and his co-authors fashioned their acoustic hyperlens from 36 brass fins arranged in the shape of a hand-held fan. Each fin is approximately 20 centimeters long and three millimeters thick. The fins, embedded in the brass plate from which they were milled, extend out from an inner radius of 2.7 centimeters to an outer radius of 21.8 centimeters, and span 180 degrees in the angular direction.

“As a result of the large ratio between the inner and outer radii, our acoustic hyperlens compresses a significant portion of evanescent waves into the band of propagating waves so that the image obtained is magnified by a factor of eight,” says co-author Fok, a graduate student in Zhang’s lab. “We chose brass as the material for the fins because it has a density about 7,000 times that of air, a large ratio that is needed to achieve the strong anisotropy required for a flat dispersion of the sound waves.”

Hyperlensing

In the world of optical imaging, hyperlensing is enjoying a hyper rage. Fabricated from metamaterials — composites of metals and dielectrics whose uniquely engineered structures give rise to extraordinary optical properties — hyperlenses make it possible to overcome the so-called “diffraction limit” by imaging features that are significantly smaller than the wavelengths of incident light. Zhang called the capturing of information carried by evanescent waves “the Holy Grail of optical information” in 2007, when he and his research group announced a hyperlens made from nanowires of silver and aluminum oxide that was able to use visible light to image objects smaller than 150 nanometers, well below visible light’s diffraction limit of 260 nanometers.

Sound waves are also hampered by an intrinsic diffraction limit when deployed for imaging purposes — objects that can be seen with conventional acoustic imaging are limited by the length of the sound wave. Once again, Zhang and his colleagues have overcome this diffraction limit by employing carefully engineered wave dispersion surfaces. This time they’ve demonstrated the first broad-band low-loss imaging with large magnification, where evanescent waves carrying information about subwavelength features are gradually converted into propagating waves.

“We provide a paradigm on the design and use of metamaterials to manipulate sound waves down to subwavelength scales,” says co-author Li, a former post doctoral fellow in Zhang’s group and now an assistant professor in City University of Hong Kong. “The success of our simple metamaterial design opens further possibilities in manipulating sound waves, particularly in transformation acoustics, which is analogous to transformation optics. Curved coordinate mappings could also be used to design novel acoustic devices such as a hyperlens with flat input and output facets.”

The current version of their acoustic hyperlens successfully produced 2-D images of objects down to 6.7 times smaller than the wavelength of the imaging sound wave. Now Zhang and his team are up-grading their technique to produced 3-D images. They are also working to make their acoustic hyperlens compatible with pulse-echo technology, which is the basis of both medical ultrasounds and underwater sonar imaging systems.

“Directly applied to current ultrasound pulse-echo technology, the hyperlens would allow the use of lower input frequency, which in turn would increase the penetration depth and allow physicians to see, for example, smaller tumors or finer features of larger objects that could help them identify other abnormalities,” Zhang says.

Acoustic hyperlens could be applied to underwater sonar as a focusing device that would allow more complex and precise custom waveforms to be created while still maintaining the power of the propagating source.

Support for this research came from the Office of Naval Research.

---

Adapted from materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091025162530.htm

Faster Maintenance with Augmented Reality

Faster fix: A U.S. Marine technician wears an augmented-reality headset as he carries out a maintenance task inside an armored vehicle.  Credit: Steven Feiner and Steven Henderson

Augmented reality helps Marine mechanics carry out repair work.

By Kristina Grifantini

In the not-too-distant future, it might be possible to slip on a pair of augmented-reality (AR) goggles instead of fumbling with a manual while trying to repair a car engine. Instructions overlaid on the real world would show how to complete a task by identifying, for example, exactly where the ignition coil was, and how to wire it up correctly.

A new AR system developed at Columbia University starts to do just this, and testing performed by Marine mechanics suggests that it can help users find and begin a maintenance task in almost half the usual time.

AR has long shown potential for both entertainment and practical applications, and the first commercial applications are starting to appear in smartphones, thanks to cheaper, more compact computer chips, cameras, and other sensors. So far, however, these apps have been mainly limited to providing directions. But researchers are also working on many practical applications, including ways to help with specific repair and maintenance tasks.

The Columbia researchers worked with mechanics from the U.S. Marine Corps to measure the benefits of using an AR headset when performing repairs to a light armored vehicle. Currently, Marine mechanics have to refer to a technical manual on a laptop while performing maintenance or repairs inside the vehicle, which has many electric, hydraulic, and mechanical components in a tight space.

A user wears a head-worn display, and the AR system provides assistance by showing 3-D arrows that point to a relevant component, text instructions, floating labels and warnings, and animated, 3-D models of the appropriate tools. An Android-powered G1 smartphone attached to the mechanic’s wrist provides touchscreen controls for cueing up the next sequence of instructions.

The idea was to present a user with the “information they need to find and fix problems in a way that is going to be more efficient and accurate,” says Steven Feiner, a professor of computer science and director of the Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Laboratory at Columbia, who carried out the research with Steven Henderson, an assistant professor at the United States Military Academy’s Department of Systems Engineering. Henderson and Feiner presented their paper at the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 09) in Orlando, FL, last Thursday, where it won the conference’s Best Paper award.

The work “provides more insights into what AR can contribute in the repair and maintenance domain, and in what specific situations AR interfaces can be helpful and advantageous,” says Tobias Höllerer, cochair of ISMAR 09 and associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Story Continues - http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23800/

Danger Room What’s Next in National Security Super Concrete in the U.S. Military, Iran … and the Pyramids?

By David Hambling

The story of geopolymers is worthy of a Dan Brown novel, with an unlikely cast including a maverick French scientist, a secretive caste of ancient stone masons and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. Along the way, the mystery of the pyramids gets solved, but it might just end with American bombs bouncing off impervious bunkers.

Geopolymers are technically described as synthetic aluminosilicate materials, but they might be more easily described as super-cements or ceramics that do not need firing. A mug made of Geopolymer will bounce off a concrete floor.

The technology of cement-making has been repeatedly lost and rediscovered. The Romans knew how to mix crushed rock (”caementitium”), with burnt lime and water to make a versatile building material. The Pantheon in Rome boasts the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, still just as strong after 2,000 years. But cement was unknown in medieval times, with lime mortar serving as a poor substitute.

However, by the 1950s, it was obvious that much modern cement is not as durable as the ancient variety, and many buildings succumbed to concrete cancer caused by water penetration and chemical action. Ukrainian scientist Victor Glukhovsky looked into why the ancient cement recipes were so much more durable than modern ones and found that adding alkaline activators gave a greatly superior product. His work inspired Joseph Davidovits, a French chemical engineer, to discover the chemistry behind geopolymers and how it can be manipulated.

Professor Davidovits was awarded the French Ordre National du Mérite, and is President of the Geopolymer Institute. His most remarkable claim is that the pyramids were built using re-agglomerated stone, a sort of geopolymer limestone concrete, rather than blocks of natural stone. This would explain many of the mysteries of pyramid construction. Handling barrels of liquid concrete and casting in place would be much easier than moving giant blocks of stone. Remarkably, recent X-ray and microscopic study of samples has supported the theory that the pyramids are made of artificial stone.

The progress of geopolymers as building materials has been slow. Builders have an understandable tendency to stick to materials which have been around for decades and whose properties are well understood. However, the U.S. Air Force has been among the more enthusiastic early adopters — I look at military applications in the current issue of Defense Technology International (page 42).

For example Pyrament, a geopolymer-based cement is handy for the rapid repair and construction of runways. After just a few hours a Pyrament runway is ready for the heaviest aircraft, reaching a strength that conventional concrete can only match after several days.

The Air Force Research laboratory has funded geopolymer research for runways, insulation material, rocket nozzles, and other applications. It’s even been developed as special glue for holding satellite components together in the harsh conditions of space.

But the U.S. does not have a monopoly on this sort of technology. A couple of years ago Danger Room reported suggestions that Iranian scientists were working on ultra-high-strength concrete compositions. (Incidentally, high-hardness concrete is used in the construction of nuclear plants.)

The University of Tehran’s Faculty of Civil Engineering has its own Construction Materials Institute, which conveniently lists research papers in English. And it turns out that there is a lot of research into concrete technology, including fiber-reinforced concrete and concrete with ultra-high electrical resistivity. The Iran University of Science and Technology also displays some of its research in English – including a number of patents for new geopolymer cement formulations. The expertise is there; the only question is over whether there are other, unseen Iranian projects in this field.

The giant new Massive Ordnance Penetrator is reckoned to be able to break through 200 feet of 5,000 pounds-per-square-inch concrete, but just 25 feet through 10,000 psi concrete. Much harder concretes might be a real challenge.

Back during the First World War, warships were equipped with armor made of a new type of steel: this was so hard that earlier armor-piercing shells would simply shatter against it.

Military history records many rounds of offense and defense leapfrogging each other: new concrete technology may see this happen again. The trick is always to be one technological step ahead of the opposition…

Photo: Geopolymer mould used in steelmaking, showing temperature resistance at over 1400C – Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/super-concrete-in-the-us-military-iran-and-the-pyramids/

Report: Cyberdeterrence may be unwise military strategy

Angela Moscaritolo

October 09, 2009

The United States shouldn’t place too much optimism in its ability to stop cyberattacks by threatening to launch them against its enemy.

That was one of the key findings of a report, “Cyberdetterance and Cyberwar,” released Thursday. The report was prepared by nonprofit research group RAND Corp. and commissioned by the U.S. Air Force.

The 203-page report evaluates the merits of cyberdeterrence, a tactic defined by the study as having the capability to “do unto others what others may do unto us.” In other words, the report examines whether the United States should threaten to retaliate to cyberattacks as a means of deterring them.

“Cyberdeterrence seems like it would be a good idea,” Martin Libicki, senior management scientist with Rand and the report’s author, wrote. “Game theory supports the belief that it might work. The nuclear standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War — which never went hot — provides the historical basis for believing cyberdeterrence should work.”

But Libicki argues that cyberwar presents unique challenges that hinder cyberdeterrence, such as the difficulty of knowing who attackers are, what damages they caused, and if they can repeat the attack.

“Hitting the wrong person back not only weakens the logic of deterrence…but makes a new enemy,” Libicki wrote. “Instead of facing one potential cyberwar, the defender may now face two.”

While deterrence may not be a viable strategy, the U.S. military still must protect its networks and systems, which it uses to function, Libicki told SCMagazineUS.com on Thursday.

“The military has no choice but to assess the threats against it and protect its networks as well as it can,” he said. “They do have to be continually prepared.”

In the report, he suggested focusing on diplomatic, economic and prosecutorial efforts.

Cybersecurity has received considerable attention by the military this year.

In June, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command to protect military networks and organize digital security efforts underway at the Pentagon.

The command is not yet operational but is expected to be soon, Department of Defense (DoD) spokesman Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh told SCMagazineUS.com in an email on Thursday.

The Navy last week announced it will merge its information technology, intelligence and communications operations into one organization to improve cybersecurity efforts. The reorganization is planned to be completed by the end of the year.

In addition, during August the 24th Air Force Command, intended to defend the Air Force from cyber intrusions, was activated.

http://www.scmagazineus.com/Report-Cyberdeterrence-may-be-unwise-military-strategy/article/151835/