A Canberra-based defence ''minnow'' has been awarded a US government contract to help prove its unique body armour technology is the best in the world.
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If Fyshwick's XTEK Limited is successful it stands to win access to America's multi-billion dollar ballistic protection market.
The US Defence department is the largest purchaser of body armour in the world. It has a standing requirement for 1.5 million sets of plates.
XTEK chairman Uwe Boettcher said the Australian defence supplier already had a viable product and had manufactured plates for its joint venture partner, Armour Australia, which had been contracted to provide body armour for the Danish army.
XTEK has announced a special rights issue to raise working capital for the US venture.
''Sophisticated investors'' will have the opportunity to buy in if the issue is not fully taken up by existing shareholders. The company uses its patented XTclave technology for what it believes are the lightest and strongest carbon composite protective plates ever made.
Mr Boettcher said the technology's potential applications extended to components for small arms, protective shielding for ground attack aircraft including combat helicopters and anywhere else that a combination of impact resistance and low weight was considered desirable.
He said the $US1.5 million contract was ''seed money'' intended to cover the cost of making a variety of composite armour plates in XTEKs unique hydroclave in Adelaide. They will then be tested in the US.
The hydroclave machine, which uses liquid pressure to form objects in composite materials, is both faster and an order of magnitude more powerful than air pressure driven autoclaves that are currently in use.
The end result is that less resin, the bonding agent used to force the elements that make up a carbon composite object together, is needed. This translates as more strength for less weight or greater strength for the same weight.
The hydroclave creates a near perfect finish that requires very little fettling once it is removed from the mould.
Once made from steel plate, ballistic body armour has undergone a revolution in recent decades due to the advent of composites. Plates are still fitted into a webbed harness worn over the body but are now much lighter.
Mr Boettcher said each ballistic plate needed to do a range of things, some of which work against each other. One is to stop the projectile, in the real world often a 7.62mm bullet fired from an AK-47, penetrating the body of the soldier or peacekeeper. Another is to not shatter as fragmentation would be just as lethal. And, thirdly, they cannot deform (or bulge out under the impact) as this could also result in death or serious injury.
Heavy armour can be a burden to wear over many hours or be constructed in such a way it restricts freedom of movement.
''With our process the bond (in the composite) goes almost to the molecular level; that is the way it has been described to me,'' Mr Boettcher said. ''Plates made in an autoclave have an unevenness. Strength can vary from point to point and the design has to make that weakest point the default position.''
Strength variation in plates, even those with curved and complex patterns, is much less with the XTclave. This means designs do not have to be over-engineered to meet a minimum strength limit.
In addition to its research into composites XTEK also markets surveillance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, TEODOR bomb disposal robots (as seen in the movie Green Zone) and the Blaser sniper rifles favoured by special forces teams.