Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics has launched CoretechTM ShelterGuard, an innovative and versatile barrier fabric used by manufacturers of protective shelters for military, defence and homeland security equipment.

The chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) shelter fabric is engineered using the advanced Coretech™ barrier membrane technology to provide maximum barrier protection against chemical and biological agents.

Suitable for use with traditional welding fabrication methods, CoretechTM ShelterGuard is an easy-to-use alternative for chemical and biological protective shelters, tents for military expedition, medical treatment units, as well as collective protection installations, resulting in a high-performance and cost-effective solution to CBRN collective protection. A single-skin CBRN shelter allows for easier erection and avoids the risk of the CBRN inner layer being omitted in operation when compared to a multilayer shelter.  A light-weight, single skin shelter also reduces the set-up and tear-down times and logistics, as well as making operational deployment much easier.

“The fabric has excellent barrier and flame resistance properties, and provides excellent black-out performance,” says Ian Hutcheson, Market Manager, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics. “Additionally, as there is just a single fabric layer involved in the shelter, only one repair kit and procedure is required. This eliminates the burden of having to carry more equipment than necessary which means increased speed and mobility for the user. Organisations using the CoretechTM ShelterGuard fabric include the U.S. military, where it is approved for use in CBRN tents and shelters under the Joint Expeditionary Collective Protection (JECP) programme. Other users include the Canadian military and the Norwegian defence forces in Europe.”

Union Industries, a specialist manufacturer of protective systems and equipment in the UK, had struggled for many years to find a robust and weldable CBRN shelter fabric with widespread resistance to toxic industrial chemicals and warfare agents. “When we started to evaluate CoretechTM ShelterGuard from Saint-Gobain, we knew immediately that this was a vast improvement on the fabrics we had used to date,” comments Mrs. Isobel Schofield, Managing Director, Union Industries. “A key concern from earlier projects had been the degrading effects of Ultraviolet (UV) stability and weathering against other materials. However the knowledge that CoretechTM ShelterGuard met the UV and weathering requirements gave us the confidence to deliver projects in short order. This is now our fabric of choice for collective protection shelters.”

The fabric meets stringent military specifications such as MIL-PRF-44103D and has been subject to testing by the TNO Organization for Applied Scientific Research in the Netherlands. It has demonstrated permeation resistance over 72 hours against a wide range of toxic industrial chemicals and biological materials in addition to warfare agents such as Distilled Mustard (HD), VX, Hydrocyanic Acid (AC), Cyanogen Chloride (CK), Sarin (GB) and Thickened Soman (tGD). CoretechTM ShelterGuard will still perform at freezing temperatures and has been tested for resistance to cold crack at minus 32 degrees Celsius. In addition, it provides excellent resistance to mildew and fungi, petroleum contact, and minimal combustion and melt droplet formation in the event of being exposed to fire.