SBIR-STTR Award

Body armor used today is an achievement of modern science, constructed of high tensile strength, manmade fibers and ultra hard, impervious ceramics. As impressive as this armor is, however, one of the most critical areas of armor testing methodology has remained largely unchanged from its National Institute of Justice (NIJ) 0101.00 roots: back face signature (BFS). The somewhat arbitrary value of 44 mm for BFS into synthetic clay has done a reasonable job serving law enforcement, but a lower BFS would have a profound impact on improving the survivability and combat capability of military personnel. While there are many approaches for modifying the ceramic plate support material to help reduce back face signature, an alternative approach is to improve the ceramic plate’s forward facing support structures to defeat incoming threats. Damaging and deforming the nose of a projectile—especially important for armor piercing projectiles—before it strikes the armor plating enables the existing ceramic technology to offer greater protection as well as a reduction in BFS. An armor system with the ability to quickly reduce the energy of an incoming projectile would have instant applicability to worn body armor.

Keywords:
Body armor, hard armor, Kevlar, non-linear, bullet tripping, thermal

The goal of this project is ultimately to develop a new mechanism to enable rigid body armor plates to defeat armor piercing threats. Our Phase I results showed three separate mechanisms for defeating both traditional armor piercing rounds as well as new AP rounds that use tungsten carbide penetrator cores. With these mechanisms now understood, our Phase II work will focus on optimizing the physical system design and evaluating the resulting armor solution in terms of SWaP (size, weight and power) to provide the warfighter with a radically new concept in personal ballistic protection. Not only will this design address current threats, but we will also be looking forward, addressing the newest and most dangerous ballistic threats whose introduction onto the modern battlefield is already looming. While military body armor is the thrust of this development, we will be looking at what it takes to provide this new technology to the federal law enforcement community as well.