As the US faces issues with aging radar-absorbent materials, China has turned to historical approaches for its advanced solutions.

As US stealth aircraft such as the F-22 Raptor face issues with their radar-absorbent coatings peeling off—an analogy often compared to “shedding cicada wings”—China asserts it has discovered a traditional remedy for this problem affecting its fifth-generation planes.

New disclosures from defense sector experts indicate that advanced stealth technologies may
technology
aboard China’s smooth-skinned
stealth fighters
The durability might be attributed to a 3,000-year-old textile advancement known as silk jacquard weaving.

Modern stealth airplanes, including the
F-22
and
F-35
Relies on multiple coating layers to bounce off radar waves. However, these materials deteriorate quickly when subjected to strain.

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U.S. maintenance records show that even small scratches caused by high-speed flights or dust storms in desert environments can significantly reduce stealth effectiveness, necessitating repeated applications of protective measures.
radar-absorbent materials
(RAM) approximately every three weeks, with expenses surpassing $60,000 per flight hour, as reported by certain US media outlets.

Moreover, in areas such as Florida, humidity worsens adhesive problems, whereas corrosion at seaside installations additionally diminishes effectiveness.

Chinese aerospace engineers have frequently criticized these temporary fixes. Rather, they aimed for a fundamental solution—one integrated into the very fabric of the materials themselves.

As reported in a study released last month in the Chinese academic journal Knitting Industries, the solution can be found in a two-layer composite material influenced by
Han dynasty
(206 BC-AD 220) Jacquard looms – a weaving technique for silk that dates back to around 200 BC.

By incorporating conductive threads into a “double-sided jacquard” fabric using a warp knitting technique, scientists from the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) and Tiangong University developed a material that absorbs 90.6 percent of radar waves within the 8-26 GHz range, surpassing traditional coating methods.

According to Professor Jiang Qian’s research team, this material represents “a blend of traditional patterns with contemporary electromagnetism.”

Like traditional jacquard weavers – who used punch-card-like “flower books” to encode intricate designs – Jiang and her colleagues embedded radar-defeating geometries directly into the textile’s matrix. Quartz fibres form a dielectric base layer, while stainless steel yarns create resonant circuits that dissipate electromagnetic energy as heat.

Each conductive thread is positioned precisely to direct and capture signals, similar to how ancient weavers would arrange silk strands to illustrate dragons or clouds, as stated by the
researchers
.

The laboratory tests highlighted significant mechanical benefits. It was discovered that the composite can endure up to 93.5 megapascals of longitudinal tensile stress—which exceeds tenfold the resilience of conventional coatings. This enhanced toughness originates from the knitted material’s anisotropic architecture, wherein the load-carrying threads are oriented parallel to each other.
aircraft’s
stress vectors, reflecting the axial strength found in Han Dynasty brocades.

The Smith Chart, which is used for electromagnetic analysis, also demonstrated nearly perfect impedance matching in the longitudinal direction, enabling
radar waves
to delve into rather than mirror, as per the study.

Archaeologists link Jacquard’s roots back to the looms of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC), where craftsmen used manual multi-heddle systems to create intricate geometric designs. By the time of the Han period, these devices became highly advanced machinery capable of incorporating up to 120 heddle rods — a technological progression encapsulated within the earliest known Jacquard weaving mechanism discovered in Chengdu’s Laoguanshan Tombs.

“A scholar from Beijing specializing in history mentioned, on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the technology, that those Han dynasty looms were not solely used for producing luxurious items,” he stated.

Just as early binary computers stored weaving codes in physical memory, today’s military engineers appear to have rediscovered this approach.

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The article initially appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), which is the premier source for news coverage of China and Asia.

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