Saint-Gobain Crystals to Make Technical Presentation On New, Lighter Transparent Armor Products

"Saint-Gobain's ability to reduce the weight and thickness of a ballistic glass system can provide direct benefits in a wide variety of armor applications, including government and military programs such as tactical vehicles, armored personnel vehicles, maritime blast protection and helicopter platforms," says Rioux.

"Recent ballistic test results have shown that our Sapphire Transparent Armor System is at least 40 percent lighter and 40 percent thinner than a glass-only system with equivalent ballistic performance," adds Rioux. "We achieved weight reduction without sacrificing ballistic performance by incorporating a layer of Saint-Gobain Crystals' Saphikon® EFG(TM) Sapphire for the strike face of the laminated structure.

"Traditional ballistic glass structures are made of laminated layers of glass and polycarbonate," adds Rioux. "While these provide effective protection against lower-level ballistic threats, the resulting systems are very thick and heavy when designed for higher-level ballistic impacts. As a better-performing alternative, Saint-Gobain's Sapphire Transparent Armor System has shown superior performance in single-shot ballistic tests."