The technology group SCHOTT has announced that it will be increasing its production capacities in the area of vehicle glazing at its site in Jena. By extending its product range to include curved SCHOTT RESISTAN glass laminates, the company will now be in a position to serve both the civilian and military market in the area of transparent ballistic vehicle protection.

SCHOTT will be presenting its 3-D curved special glass laminates to the public for the first time ever at the EUROSATORY 2012 exhibition in Paris.

This expansion of production capacities was preceded by ballistic qualification and TUV approval of the third model of civilian off-road vehicles that was equipped with this new curved transparent protection. SCHOTT offers vehicle glazing for the civilian sector that meets the conditions of the highest protection class with respect to civilian standards: VR 7 based on EN 1063 or VR 9 based on VPAM BRV 2009. Military laminates can also be shaped to be three dimensional.

The company has acquired initial projects involving curved transparent protection of weapon stations in Level 3 based on AEP 55 and already supplied the respective products.

The curved vehicle protection product SCHOTT RESISTAN is manufactured using Borofloat, a technical borosilicate glass offered by SCHOTT. A quarter of the weight can be saved by using this special material instead of normal glass.

Furthermore, this material also has an extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion, which, in turn, significantly lowers the occurrence of delamination as a result of differences in temperatures and material expansion between the individual layers of the laminate. This product also offers protection against damages to the windshield that is one third higher than that of normal glass and thus considerably lowers the total life cycle costs.

"The business we do outside purely military projects continues to grow in a predictable manner," notes Jan Molter, Vice President of the SCHOTT Protection Business Segment.

"We decided to extend our manufacturing capacities in terms of both materials and manpower to make sure we will be able to meet the gratifying high demand by offering the highest quality products on time," Molter adds.

Vehicle glazing made of SCHOTT RESISTAN has been providing protection for an Asian head of state's fleet of off-road vehicles for several months now. These protective laminates are capable of standing up to temperatures of up to 75 degrees C.

The technology group also announced that it is working on developing protective front windshields for trucks. The goal is to significantly improve viewing even behind relatively thick protective glass laminates that have the same curved shape as the panes used in civilian applications that do not offer this protection. Military audiences appear to be quite interested.

"Fortunately, we are seeing interest from a large share of interested parties from abroad here too who feel that is extremely important to have a German reference," Molter concludes.