Cyborg's anti-kinetic armor research thread

Probably an outer layer of platinum, followed by something solid like VCS, possibly backed by something else that would catch the plasma, or an air pocket, or aerogel, backed by another solid.

Sounds appropriate. Your mileage may vary though.

Well the best composite outer whipple shield I tested had Platinum(innermost), Gold then Lead(Outermost). Relative thickness for a 5mm whipple shield was 1mm Lead, 1mm Gold and 3mm Platinum. For a 3mm whipple it was 0.5mm Lead, 0.5mm Gold and 2mm Platinum.

The Lead is prone to melting and vaporizing on impact, and is rather dense eating up a impactors kinetic energy and minimizing the amount of additional solid fragments(as long as the Lead is thin and is the first material struck).

Gold makes a good intermediate material being both very malleable and ductile. The slightly higher melting point and high density helps. Like the Lead layer you don't need or want much of it relative too the Platinum layer.

Platinum is stiffer but very ductile, keeping the amount(by mass) of dangerous fragments down. As long as it is the final layer. Works best when reasonably thicker than the first two.

Note that platinum makes a good bumper or spall liner in general.

Bumper layers that work well with the Whipple shield described above:

1st Bumper: Simply a layer of Platinum equal in thickness to the composite outer whipple. Just 1cm of space between them. This will cause the fragments(and plasma) generated from the whipple shield to disperse in a cone after penetration(rather than a sphere) and with less kinetic energy. Also doesn't contribute a dangerous amount of additional fragments or plasma.

2nd. Bumper: Spider silk, thickness equal to that of the Whipple shield and 1st. Bumper added together. 10cm away from first bumper.

3rd+ Bumpers: very optional, continue using spider silk at the same thickness above or make each layer as thick as the ones above added together. Gap distance can very, see *Note below. Further Bumpers can catch some fragments and reduce the velocity of others.

Gapes can be replaced by Graphite Aerogel as desired... Needed more testing(don't bother with replacing the 1cm Gap between the Whipple shield and 1st Bumper with a Graphite Aerogel Layer, not worth it.)

*Note that whatever number of bumpers you have make the widest gap the one before the pressure wall, even if that means making the gaps between whipple shield and bumpers thinner. You want maximum dispersion of plasma and fragments before the pressure wall is struck.

Don't use tougher fibers in place of spidersilk(normally). They contribute dangerous additional material when penetrated. If you have --many-- bumpers and your final bumper is thick enough you could use a tough fiber(because you expect it to succeed at catching the majority of fragments without suffering penetration).

also I have a composite wipple, (outer to inner) 3.5mm Al, 0.5mm Diamond, 0.5mm VCS, 0.5mm Boron Filment

I usually just use 0.5 mm diamond backed by 3.0 mm amorphous carbon for anti-laser Whipple shield, with several dozens cm of graphite aerogel for filling and 3.0mm boron filament as final layer if there's weight to spare.

But looking on this thread here, I think I would like to try something different for fun.

 
My standard whipple layering is very similar and I've had good results as well.

Diamond > Tin > Graph gel > boron filament