Development of low-emissive camouflage paint: Final report

This report concludes a collaboration project between the Swedish Defence Research Agency and the Finnish Defence Forces Technical Research Centre, on the development of low-emissive paint for camouflage in the IR, without loosing performance in the visual region. Different types of pigments and polymer based binders have been tested, both individually and mixed together as paint, also including various additives. IR-reflecting pigments such as Al, Ag, Cu, coated metal pigments, metal coated cenospheres, Si and multiple-layers of TiO2/Au/TiO2 were used in the shapes of flakes or spherical particles of different size distributions. Coated metal pigments and multiple-layer flakes were used in order to decrease the reflectance in the visual range. One conclusion is that among these pigments only aluminium-based paint gave rise to acceptably low emissivity. Various pigmentation colours were used for visual effect. Radar transmission properties of paint were also investigated.