Testing of Body Armor Materials Phase III (2012) / Chapter Skim
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9 Future Improvements in Testing Methodology
9 Future Improvements in Testing Methodology
Pages 240-256
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From page 240... ...
It was never intended to become the body armor testing gold standard for military and police forces nationally, especially not for hard body armor.65 Nonetheless, it has in fact evolved into a standard approach internationally even though the character of the threats as well as the composition and construction of body armor have changed. The original work in the late 1970s provided an efficient method for testing body armor without live animals using a surrogate that allowed determining the adequacy of a given soft body armor to prevent a certain magnitude of backface deformation (BFD)
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TABLE 9-1 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Prather Methodology Strengths Weaknesses Ease of use Clay constituents have changed considerably since original study Immediate results Clay variability (handling, thixotropy, Relatively low cost temperature effects, etc.) Large historical database of results Current methodology requires elevated clay temperatures Apparent success in field for soft body armor All variability in testing results is assumed to be design flaws in the armor Apparent success in field for hard body armor Method has limited medical validation for soft body armor Method has no medical validation for hard body armor Pass/fail criterion In Chapter 4 the report discussed and provided findings and recommendations for mitigating the weaknesses associated with the variability of clay and its formulations, especially important for production testing.
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From page 242... ...
To overcome the weaknesses of the Prather methodology, Chapter 5 provides findings and recommendations on the instrumentation to measure indents in the clay recording medium. This understanding should lead to refinements to the current body armor testing process and provide a platform for evaluating new body armor designs to defeat future threats while minimizing the ergonomic penalties of vest bulk and weight.
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FIGURE 9-2 Flow chart showing suggested near-term and medium-term research needs, and a long term goal to provide the fundamental medical basis for injury risk assessment behind helmets and hard body armor.
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A B C Projectile FIGURE 9-3 Schematic of conceptual approach used by both testers and researchers showing a projectile impacting normally onto hard body armor (A) , soft body armor (B)
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Medical researchers are trying to develop very specific insights in how behind-armor forces cause trauma to a specific organ, groups of organs, or other localized portions of the human body. Higher cost recording media such as electronic sensors or organ surrogates are the norm in this type of research.
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A sensor grid system such as shown in the figure could be placed immediately behind armor at the B/C interface and immediately ahead of medical recording sensors for medical research. A similar grid could be placed immediately behind armor and immediately ahead of modeling clay during production testing.
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Recommendation 9-1: The Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation should take the lead in aligning the production testing, medical research, and body armor/helmet technology development communities so that the data outputs from their various processes can be easily correlated. This will lead to a better understanding of the relationships among body armor testing performance, human/animal survivability, and 66 Russell Prather, Survice Engineering Company, "The Lightweight Body Armor Program - A History," presentation to the committee, August, 10, 2010.
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SYNCHRONIZING THE STAKEHOLDERS The actions contained in Figures 9-1 and 9-2 require the coordinated activities of the entire body armor community. Stakeholders include not only the at-risk warfighters and law enforcers but also the organizations and individuals involved in fabrication design, fabrication technology, materials testing, production quality assurance, performance criteria development, and performance verification, as well as those involved in linking medical damage thresholds to body armor performance.
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Testing and fielding of the most effective armor requires close communications among the stakeholders. Military and Law Enforcement Personnel The principal stakeholders are the warfighters and civil servants at risk for gunshot wounding who need protection with limited ergonomic or other penalties.
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Production testing is based on practical, cost-effective, and accurate processes. These processes need to ensure that the armor being tested will prevent specified threat rounds from penetrating it and keep the measured BFD below the level that could cause serious injury for the soldier while achieving the lowest practical weight burden.
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recommended that the ad hoc clay working group be empowered and adequately resourced to gather information, influence research, and develop working-level consensus across body armor testing organizations. The report recommended that, after the clay working group had reached a reasonable consensus, DOT&E and NIJ should convene a nationally recognized group to review all appropriate considerations and develop recommendations that could lead to a single national body armor testing standard to achieve more uniform testing results.
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The military subsequently adopted the NIJ standards for body armor testing but felt that the large quantities of body armor that were being purchased in a centralized manner could benefit from more prescriptive requirements. Ideally, there is a middle-ground solution where the NIJ standard(s)
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Alignment of body armor and helmet testing procedures. Finding: The original ad hoc clay working group could be expanded to form Department of Defense's portion of the national body armor testing standardization committee that was recommended in the Phase II report.
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Recommendation 9-2: The Director of Operational Test & Evaluation and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) , in collaboration with the military services, unified commands, government testing organizations, NIJ-certified testing laboratories, medical researchers and governmental and commercial material developers should convene a national body armor testing standard committee to review all appropriate considerations and develop recommendations that could lead to updated national body armor configurations and testing standards for body armor and helmet testing.
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PREPUBLICATION DRAFT -- SUBJECT TO EDITORIAL CORRECTION Appendixes -255
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