Refrigerant-Releasing Composite Coating for Heat-Triggered Fire Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current materials for protecting vehicles, ammunition, and personnel from small arms projectiles and extreme conditions are expensive and lack self-cooling and fire extinguishing properties.
Innovation Solution
The development of composite materials with woven or layered polarized fibers coated with a metal compound and sorbent, which releases a gaseous refrigerant at elevated temperatures to provide cooling and fire extinguishing capabilities, while maintaining mechanical integrity and potentially offering penetration resistance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional protective materials are used for vehicles and personnel, then penetration resistance is provided, but cost increases and self-cooling/fire extinguishing properties are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies composite materials by combining substrate fibers (glass, polyamide, polyphenylene sulfide, carbon, or graphite) with metal compound coatings that contain coordinated complex compounds of polar gas refrigerants and sorbents. This composite structure provides both mechanical protection and thermal management functions, resolving the contradiction between protective capability and cost by integrating multiple functions into a single material system.
Solution Approach 2:
The protective composite provides multiple functions simultaneously: penetration resistance from the substrate structure, self-cooling through refrigerant release at elevated temperatures, and fire extinguishing capabilities. This multi-functionality resolves the contradiction by eliminating the need for separate cooling and protection systems, thereby reducing overall cost while maintaining reliability.
2Reliability
If conventional protective materials are used, then penetration resistance is achieved, but self-cooling and fire extinguishing properties are absent
Solution Approach 1:
The composite integrates substrate materials for penetration resistance with metal compound coatings containing refrigerant-sorbent complexes. This enables the material to provide both mechanical protection and adaptive thermal response (self-cooling and fire extinguishing), resolving the contradiction between protective capability and adaptability to different thermal threats.
Solution Approach 2:
The metal compound coating changes its physical-chemical parameters at elevated temperatures, triggering refrigerant release. This parameter change enables the material to adapt to different thermal conditions (fire, explosion, directed energy) while maintaining structural integrity, thus providing both protection and adaptability.
3Reliability
If the coating prevents refrigerant release at atmospheric pressure, then refrigerant containment is achieved, but refrigerant release at elevated temperatures is restricted
Solution Approach 1:
The coating material's permeability parameter changes in response to temperature and pressure conditions. At atmospheric pressure, the coating maintains low permeability to contain refrigerant, while at elevated temperatures with increased internal pressure, the coating becomes permeable, allowing refrigerant release. This parameter change resolves the contradiction between containment and release capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The coating transitions from a static barrier to a dynamic selective barrier that adapts its permeability based on thermal and pressure conditions. This dynamic behavior enables the system to maintain refrigerant containment during normal operation while automatically releasing refrigerant when thermal threats are detected, resolving the contradiction between containment reliability and temperature-responsive release.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The composite materials offer cost-effective, multi-directional strength, and self-cooling and fire extinguishing properties, effectively protecting against heat, flames, and projectiles by releasing refrigerant gases at specific temperature thresholds, thereby preventing ignition or extinguishing flames.
Implementation Method 1
the composite releases refrigerant. Such refrigerant release will cool the composite and may prevent ignition of protected contents and/or personnel or extinguish a flame
Implementation Method 2
a coordinated complex compound of a polar gas refrigerant and sorbent comprising a metal salt or a metal hydroxide
Data Source
AI summary
A composite configured to release refrigerant therefrom comprises a substrate material comprising polarized fibers of glass, polyamide, phenylene sulfide, carbon or graphite having bonded thereon a metal compound comprising a complex compound of a polar gaseous refrigerant and a metal salt and/or a hydrated metal hydroxide and/or a metal hydroxide of a metal selected from the group consisting of alkali metal, alkaline earth metal, transition metal, zinc, cadmium, tin, aluminum, or two or more thereof, at a concentration of at least about 0.3 grams/cc of open substrate material volume, and a coating composition thereon configured to prevent release of internal gaseous refrigerant therethrough at ambient temperatures and pressure and capable of penetration of gaseous refrigerant therethrough from the composite interior at temperatures causing internal gas pressures of 15% or more above exterior pressure for such refrigerant release.