Elastomeric coatings continue to be advocated for as excellent retrofit materials for strategic applications, expressly for blast mitigation and ballistic assurance. Polyurea, an elastomer produced by the reaction of isocyanate and amine, maintains hard domains dispersed randomly within the soft areas, creating a mosaic landscape with a nano-segregated microstructure, with each field exhibiting its own characteristic glass transition temperature.
Commercialised in the late nineteen-eighties, this relatively new entrant in the arena of elastomers has garnered enormous recognition given its unique blast mitigation properties and ballistic stability. Although the research is abundant with studies illustrating the potential of polyurea for retrofitting applications, the underlying tool following its extraordinary properties has not yet been fully recognized.
The ballistic protection capability is associated to the dynamic transition from “rubber to glass,” which occurs when the substance is subjected to extremely high strain relations, while the blast mitigation potential is attributed to a phenomenon more commonly referred to as “shock wave acquisition and neutralization.”
Since the blast mitigation and ballistic protection ability is compromised by the hard and soft domains of polyurea, respectively, the polymer demands to be tuned for a critical application through judicious choice of the raw materials. The current article reviews the relevant publications in the field of polyurea-based retrofits including their preparation, characterization, properties, and applications in the context of blast mitigation and ballistic protection.
