APPLYING ADVANCED MATERIALS

ARDI’s practical application of advanced materials is helping win the fight and protect the warfighter.

Whether providing better protection for the warfighter’s meals or developing improved personal protection, ARDI brings together dedicated teams from around the nation to collaborate on advanced materials solutions.

Safer, More Secure Meal Packaging

ARDI understands that more appealing and nourishing meals mean higher levels of performance and greater endurance for our warfighters. We also know that providing safe and nourishing meals to our soldiers in the field requires more than simply a wrapper. Today’s packaging materials must not only provide containment that ensures long-term barrier protection against temperature, humidity, vermin, and handling, they must also provide tamperproof security against environmental attacks. ARDI is meeting these challenges under its Advanced Warfighter Sustainment Systems for the 21st Century (AWSS-21) program. The technology being developed under AWSS-21 provides environmental awareness by employing active packaging and has built-in cognitive and physical performance enhancement with targeted nutrient delivery. Advanced polymeric nano-structured composites aid in keeping these systems lightweight while providing optimal protection.

Enhanced Body Protection

As long as Americans are placed in harm’s way while defending our way of life, there will remain a need to exert considerable effort to provide solutions to keep them as safe as possible. ARDI is contributing to this urgent cause by focusing on the development and implementation of advanced blast protection solutions that utilize materials designed for maximum soldier performance. Accordingly, minimizing lower extremity injury to our warfighters is the top priority for ARDI’s composites armor shin guards program. The technology developed under this program uses the latest in advanced materials and manufacturing technologies to produce lightweight lower body protection against improvised explosive devices and close range small arms fire. Using the guidance put forth by our DoD customer, ARDI succeeded in producing this innovative rapidly manufactured solution at a very reasonable cost so it could be deployed to the battlefield quickly.

Innovative combat meal packaging improves warfighter health, performance, endurance, and comfort. Advanced composite technology enables improved lower body armor protection for our troops. Composite prosthetics allow our injured service members to enjoy the standard of living they deserve.

But When an Injury Occurs…

Unfortunately body armor and other forms of personal protection do not always prevent warfighter injury. Loss of one or more extremities is the most common injury, and returning these casualties to as normal a standard of life as possible is a top priority for all concerned. This includes ARDI, who has become a recognized leader in advancing state of the art prosthetics design through the use of advanced composite materials. ARDI’s solution is lighter, easier to maneuver, and more durable. This means less adjustment and fewer replacements, which equates to improved comfort and lower cost.

 

The Road Ahead for Prosthetics To assist DoD in setting their prosthetic investment strategy, ARDI and the Composite Manufacturing Technology Center hosted a groundbreaking workshop that brought together experts in the field of prosthetics and orthotics from Walter Reed, leading prosthetic manufacturers, and academia. DoD veteran amputees were also present. Since gatherings of the prosthetics community are rare, the workshop provided an avenue to gather input from existing prosthetic users as well as manufacturers who supply prosthetic devices. In addition, the prosthetics community agreed that much of their practice has historically been an art form that is now ready for a more scientific approach. The workshop identified several potential projects which can initiate a more systematic approach to designing and fabricating customized prosthetic systems for amputee soldiers. In the short term, they will enable development of new tools for prosthetists to use. These include a system of dynamic models which can track the load transfer between the external prosthetic and the internal skeleton, and the development of composite systems which can be easily modified locally to increase the comfort of these composites sockets.