Indian scientists have made a new material to make ‘radar-invisible’ defense warships. The material absorbs microwaves coming from the enemy radar. This prevents the waves from getting reflected back to the detector, making it invisible.
Radars work by emitting microwaves through a transmitter. The waves travel to the enemy aircrafts and submarines, and get reflected from their surface. Then, a detector senses the reflected waves and identifies the warships.
Radars are of five types- L, S, C, X, and K, depending upon the frequency of waves on which they operate. Modern warfare uses X-band radars as they employ high-frequency microwaves that can detect aircrafts and submarines located thousands of miles away.
To escape detection by radar, warships are made using two types of materials- carbon fibers and ferrite composites. Both materials absorb microwaves. This is how they become invisible to the radar.
Compared to carbon fibers, ferrite composites have added advantages of being stable at high temperatures, highly flexible and strong, and resistant to corrosion. But, they have to be bound to a suitable matrix to make them efficient microwave absorbers.
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur and Defense Laboratory, Jodhpur have made a new ferrite composite to help Indian defense aircrafts become invisible to enemy radars. They published their results in the journal Scientific Reports.
The new ferrite composite- FMAR80, is made by binding Nickel zinc ferrite powder in layers of a specialized rubber called NBR (acryloNitrile Butadiene Rubber). A simple and energy-efficient chemical process is used to make the material in less than 12 hours.
“FMAR80 can be used as a microwave absorber for strategic applications such as microwave stealth”, say scientists L Saini, MK Patra, RK Jani, GK Gupta, A Dixit, and SR Vadera.
Published- India Science Wire
Reference: Scientific Reports 7: 44457.
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