A novel infrared stealth coating material IR-PAN with excellent infrared radiation feature fusion performance of vegetation background

In this work, to explore the optimal coating process parameters of superior infrared (IR) camouflage performance in vegetation background, the effect of IR unit materials with different substrate surface (Al and Foam) on the surface temperature and IR image at different temperatures were studied. Wherein, the emissivity values of IR unit range from 0 to 0.933, and the scope of the substrate thickness is 0.2–1.2 cm. Besides, in order to further improve the IR camouflage performance of such IR unit materials, an IR/AlN/SiC composite coating (IR-PAN) was prepared and the IR fusion effect was also evaluated by the temperature difference, IR radiation energy difference and the fusion effect of the thermal image between IR-PAN and the traditional coatings. Finally, the experimental results showed that the target background temperature difference, radiation energy difference and the infrared fusion effect of IR-PAN were better than the traditional coatings because of the addition of the underlying coating, which buffered the heat and reduced the difference between the target and background thermal inertia. The temperature difference reduced from 2.58 °C to 1.13 °C, the energy difference of infrared radiation decreased from 1.6 e−3 J to 8.3 e−7 J and more fusion of thermal images was observed. IR-PAN exhibited better corrosion resistance, higher thermal conductivity of 0.463 (about 0.25 higher than traditional epoxy resin coating), hardness of 6H, impact resistance of 50/kg·cm−1, adhesion grade 1 (better mechanical properties) and the optimum AlN content of 20%. •Various methods were used to evaluate the infrared fusion efficiency of core units under complex vegetation background.•A new IR/AlN/SiC composite coating IR-PAN was designed and prepared.•IR-PAN achieved perfect integration with four complex vegetation background temperatures and infrared thermal imaging.•IR-PAN had excellent physical and optical properties through a series of performance tests such as corrosion resistance.•IR-PAN may have the potential advantage of being mounted on military targets.