Anastasia Minitska, a 17-year-old graduate of Kyiv Technical Lyceum, together with her mentor from KPI created a unique material that can significantly improve the protection of the military.
Working in the laboratory of cryogenic technology of KPI, Anastasia improved porous aluminum, previously developed for military purposes. By adding special fillers, she made the material even lighter, more plastic and stronger, which allows it to more effectively resist destruction during impact.
“We use a porous sample of aluminum, insert it into the extruder chamber and fill the polymer in the form of granules. Under pressure and heat, the polymer passes through the porous sample, impregnating it“, Anastasia explains the process of creating the material.
According to the young researcher, this material can be useful for protecting the military during demining, as well as as an additional layer over body armor to reduce injuries.
“When this material was shown to us, they also wanted to develop it as a domfiring element – it could be used in explosions and everything else – it is light and has good strength“, explained the head of the educational and scientific laboratory of cryogenic technology of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of NTU Kyiv Polytechnic Institute named after I. Sikorsky” Oleg Kozlenko.
The invention has already been applied for a patent, and Anastasia dreams of testing it in the field. She is ready to refine the material if it is necessary for its effective use.
“We use a porous sample of aluminum, which we previously received in the laboratory, insert it into the extruder chamber and then pour the polymer in the form of granules, which passes through the screw, which is like a particle that rotates and creates pressure under which the polymer passes into the chamber, heats up and under pressure passes through the porous sample. And he gets impregnation, we get a sample like this”, says researcher Anastasia Minitska.
