INSTITUTES of higher learning come together to develop stronger armour for the military, getting junior college students to work with NTU under the Nanyang Research Programme.

Project supervisors Associate Professor Ma Jan and Assistant Professor Hng Huey Hoon are leading a group of four Junior College (JC) students in experimenting with a variety of materials to develop better body armour for soldiers. The funding for this research is provided by the Ministry of Defence (Mindef).

The NRP is part of NTU’s effort to involve JC students in engineering research conducted by the university’s professors. The project, MSE1: Advanced Materials Systems for Soldier Protection, aims to integrate harder materials into conventional Kevlar armour, currently the body armour used by most armies.  

Professor Ma said: “The issue of providing better protection for soldiers has been a cause for concern right from the beginning. In Singapore, we also want to come up with stronger armour in order to provide better protection for our soldiers.”

He said the team’s primary focus is to add harder materials like ceramics to the Kevlar armour. Their compositions are tailored to achieve the properties necessary for protection against different ballistic impacts.

While strengthening the Kevlar armour is the main objective of the team, other important considerations include the overall weight and water resistance of the armour.

The JC students who are part of this research project go through various stages of experiments to test the armour under different conditions. For example, they fire at the armour at the rifle range to test its ability to withstand bullet shots.

Lee Jie Yang, 17, a first-year Hwa Chong Instituition student, said: “The project was greatly enriching with the close guidance by student mentors and supervisors. There was never a moment where we lacked help or good advice. It was, in all, exciting to be at the frontier of such interesting fields of material and defence science.”

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