Canadian team researches add-on armour

NP Aerospace is providing engineering expertise and resources for a programme funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to research and develop new Canadian-made ceramic add-on vehicle armour.

The five-year, C$3.2 million ($2.57 million) initiative also involves three universities (University of Alberta, University of British Columbia and York University), Defence Research and Development Canada and General Dynamics Land Systems - Canada.

The programme will introduce new modelling and simulation technologies to the development and testing of protection against medium-calibre armour piercing fin stabilised discarding sabot ammunition, NP Aerospace noted in a 19 January statement.

Empirical data generated by the programme should underpin future developments and will increase sustainability by replacing a proportion of live testing with simulated testing.

This in turn ‘will reduce the time required to develop and field future armoured vehicles’, NP Aerospace added.

Dr James Hogan of the University of Alberta, academic lead in the programme, said: ‘Armour modelling and simulation has numerous advantages. It allows us to correlate live ballistic impact with simulated testing and to make more informed design decisions using extensive trend-based data.’