March 5, 2015
CRANE, Indiana - This month, Crane employees were issued patents for several inventions developed to enhance the safety, speed and efficiency of the Warfighter.
Eric Scheid, Brad Moan and Thomas Gailey invented a simultaneous nonelectric priming assembly and method. The performance of certain operations, military and otherwise, requires an explosive to be placed at a blasting site. That explosive may be detonated from a location remote from the blasting site to ensure the safety of the user. This priming assembly couples a plurality of detonators to at least one explosive through a plurality of transmission lines so that if both detonators detonate within microseconds seconds of one another, explosive charges from both may pass simultaneously to the plurality of transmission lines. Even if one detonator fails, the explosive charge from the functioning detonator may still pass simultaneously to the plurality of transmission lines.
If the priming assembly only included a single detonator, extreme caution would be needed when handling the failed detonator to avoid an unwanted detonation. A priming assembly with a plurality of detonators increases the likelihood that at least one of the detonators will function properly.
Eric Scheid and Colt Miller created a solid lined fabric and a method for making the fabric. The invention seeks to address a deficiency between light-weight, flexible materials and rigid materials. It consists of a lined fabric that has characteristics of a rigid material while maintaining the flexibility and versatility of a fabric, and also a fabric with an exterior that bolsters the effect of the liner material.
A lined fabric may be used as a fragmentation sleeve for explosive ordnance and also for body armor, where the materials minimize ballistic and/or weapon penetration. Other uses include electromagnetic shielding, power generation, flotation, insulation and theft deterrence. This invention may also augment explosives deployed in oil wells.
Alexander M. Soles, Matthew R. Walsh and Eric B. Scott invented an event detection system user interface system coupled to multiple sensors including an impact detection system. The system includes a sensing device for detecting damage events related to a structure of interest. This sensing device communicates with a measurement system to determine damage criteria and a processing system that uses the criteria to establish, for example, the direction of the initiation point of a ballistic that caused the damage.
The invention may be used to detect failures in body armor and personal protective equipment, locate ballistic wounds caused by bomb blasts or gunfire and avert potential disasters in space caused by contact with space junk, meteorites and micrometeoroids. It could also be used to determine the extent of damage to a vehicle while a collision is happening and utilize the information to deploy specific airbags, actively monitor the skin of an aircraft and oversee the condition of unmanned aerial vehicles and battle field robots.
These patented technologies are examples of support provided to the Warfighter by Crane’s nationally recognized technical experts.