Ballistic Performance Test of Multiple Reinforcements Composite Armor Vest

Armor vest is a self-protection device intended to minimize injury from ballistic impact. It serves to resist penetration and reduce impact energy generated by projectile. When a collision occurs, kinetic energy of the projectile is absorbed and distributed around the impact area of the vest; before it is finally forwarded to the user body. The forwarded energy and velocity of the projectile to the body are reduced as the vest holds the projectile penetration. It occurs by spreading momentum of the projectile into the user's body. In other words, the vest serves to expand the contact area between the projectile and the body. Remaining transmitted kinetic energy still might caused temporary blackout, bruises, swelling, and even serious internal injuries. Conventional armor vest is quite heavy, expensive, and not available locally. Considering these conditions, improved alternative material namely multiple reinforcements composite is needed in reducing kinetic energy from projectile impact. Research on this topic is conducted in two phases, simulation phase and experimetal phase. Simulation phase aims to obtain carbon fiber number of layer and the optimum thickness of the vest. Meanwhile experimental phase is perform in order to validate the simulation results. On this experiment, armor vest prototype is tested by following ballistic testing standard of National Institute of Justice (NIJ) 0101.06 level IIIA. Based on simulation, it shows that 6 mm thickness of epoxy-hollow glass microspheres-sisal fiber and 10 layers of carbon fiber on the back side is satisfied the requirement of National Institute of Justice for level IIIA. Thickness of the carbon fiber layer is 0.8 mm each, therefore total thickness of armor vest is 14 mm. Ballistic test by using Glock 17 USA caliber 9 mm full metal jacket (FMJ) shows that projectile penetrations is 5.40 mm with the back face signature (BFS) about 10 mm. The second ballistic test is using Revolver R1V1 Caliber 38 mm. The projectile penetrations is 7.88 mm with BFS about 20 mm. Both ballistic tests are satisfied the requirement of National Institute of Justice for level IIIA since maximum BFS limit is 44 mm.