The Use of Rare Earth Materials As An alloy For Increasing Power to Weight Ratio in Armoured Fighting Vehicles

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Abstract

Rare earth elements play an essential role in our national defence. The military uses night-vision goggles, precision-guided weapons, communications equipment, GPS equipment, batteries, and other defense electronics requiring need for rare earth alloying. These give the military an enormous advantage. As the world becomes a more volatile and dangerous place, the use of rare earth elements for defence purposes is growing. They are key ingredients for the very hard alloys used in Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) and projectiles that shatter upon impact into thousands of sharp fragments. Neodymium – laser range finders, guidance systems, communications and Europium in fluorescents and phosphors in lamps and monitors are good examples of emerging applications. All together the aim is to enhance combat efficiency in general and reduction in weight to power ratio in particular. The current focus of Indian R & D related to AFVs  is based on scope that, rare  earth elements are used in battery, telescope lenses, permanent magnets, motors, optoelectronics, lighting, and computer hard drives to enable them to be smaller, cheaper and more efficient in general and power to weight reduction in particular. A target of 25 horse power per tonne is a better choice for an efficient Armoured Fighting Vehicle.