Allegheny Technologies Inc.’s next-generation ATI 500-MIL™ armor steel has been selected for use in an armored situational awareness kit on the U.S. Army’s Stryker Light Armored Vehicles.
The new add-on kit, which is known as the StrykShield™, comprises front and side transparent armor windows that are mounted in a framework built with ATI 500-MIL high-hard armor steel. Produced by Carapace Armor Technology, the kit provides increased visibility and situational awareness for Stryker crews, while providing full ballistic and blast protection.
“Carapace selected ATI 500-MIL steel due to its exceptional ballistic performance, improved flatness over other high-hard armor products, minimal distortion after cutting, and unique auto-tempering capability,” said Pat Hassey, ATI Chairman, President and CEO. “This first use of ATI 500-MIL armor steel on a legacy vehicle system demonstrates the alloy’s adaptability to the most demanding applications, and underscores its availability in quantity at a time when the need for high-hard specialty metals remains strong.”
The StrykShield kit has been successfully fielded and battle tested in Iraq for two years. The U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force has ordered 690 StrykShield kits for deployment on Stryker vehicles.
Allegheny Technologies’ ATI 500-MIL steel is the first new, high-hard steel armor developed in America since the Vietnam conflict, and meets new U.S. MIL-DTL-46100E high-hard specifications for ballistic performance. Its use in the StrykShield kits will be its first major legacy-vehicle military application.
While offering protection against such threats as armor-piercing rounds, ATI 500-MIL steel also offers good blast-resistance properties. In addition to its use on a full range of ground vehicles, it can be installed on above-deck structures for ships, and aboard aircraft in perforated versions.
ATI 500-MIL armor steel is available in plate form, with sheet product currently in development by ATI. The specialty armor plate is offered in thickness gauges from 3/16 to 1 inch (0.5 to 2.5 cm), and in sizes as large as 96 X 300 inches (243 X 763 cm), with customized manufacturing solutions available to meet customers' specific needs.
Allegheny Technologies is one of the largest and most diversified specialty metals producers in the world with revenues of $5.5 billion during 2007. ATI’s major markets are aerospace and defense, chemical process industry/oil and gas, electrical energy, medical, automotive, food equipment and appliance, machine and cutting tools, and construction and mining. Products include titanium and titanium alloys, nickel-based alloys and superalloys, stainless and specialty alloys, grain-oriented electrical steel, zirconium, hafnium, and niobium, tungsten materials, and forgings and castings.