Bulletproof vests are designed to disperse the round’s energy and deform the slug to minimise blunt force trauma. Hard body armour is made of strengthened steel plates. It is strong and effective but also heavy and cumbersome. But some ammunition can even penetrate steel, requiring stronger materials still.
To understand how these types of bulletproof vests work, you could watch soccer player. What? It’s true! Picture how the net on a soccer goal catches and stops a soccer ball. It can even stop one kicked by the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo or Megan Rapinoe! Bulletproof vests stop bullets the same way. They’re made of web-like nets of special fabrics.
A soccer goal’s net absorbs the ball’s energy. It spreads the energy out across all the fibers in the net. This slows and then stops the ball’s forward movement. The tightly-woven, flexible synthetic fibers in a bulletproof vest do the same thing. The fibers in the vest “catch” the bullet. They bring it to a stop before it can penetrate the body and cause serious injury or even death.
Of course, if you’ve ever seen a soccer ball kicked into a goal, you know that the net lets the ball travel a little way before it stops it. Bulletproof vests can’t let bullets do the same thing. That’s why the fibers in a bulletproof vest must be packed together much tighter. They’re so densely packed that you could think of them as thousands of soccer goal nets overlapped and piled on top of each other.
When a bullet comes into contact with the plate, the fibers absorb the impact and disperse the energy throughout the plate. When body armour was first used, the fact that the energy needed to be dispersed was not known. Many people were protected from the actual penetration of the bullet, but later died from the internal injuries they sustained from the impact of the bullet. Internal organs are very sensitive to extreme impact and in order to avoid injury, developers figured out that the ultra-high strength and ultra-high modulus heterocyclic aramid composite bullet Material needed to be woven together so that it would disperse the energy from the bullet.
How can so much fabric fit in one vest? That’s where the modern technology of synthetic fibers comes into play. As early as 1965, the chemical company DuPont made a synthetic fiber known for its high strength, low weight, and resistance to chemicals, cuts, and fire. This fiber was called Kevlar. It was soon used to make the first generation of flexible, concealable body armor.
The latest vests employ Internationally leading ultra-high strength and ultra-high modulus heterocyclic aramid composite bullet Material. The raw material has been used in Aero engines and rockets with excellent quality. Soft body armour is not as strong, but it is more lightweight and less conspicuous to wear. It is woven out of interlacing strands of Kevlar. Like hard body armour, layers of this tough, net-like material deform the incoming bullet, robbing it of its energy.
Today’s bulletproof vests will protect against most common low-caliber handguns. But high-powered weapons, especially rifles, can still penetrate bulletproof vests. The only protection from these types of weapons is usually “hard” bulletproof armor made of rigid ceramics and metals. Unfortunately, these types of body armor are usually too bulky and heavy to wear for everyday use.
Bullet proof vests that are worn today are designed to take the impact and disperse it. The vests provide protection for the level they are designed to withstand. It is important to be sure that you are wearing a vest that offers the right protection to suit your needs. A vest that is designed for small ammunition fire will not have the ability to disperse the energy that comes from a larger round. This means that the round could pass through the vest or the impact could cause internal injuries to someone. It is best to take the time to assess the dangers that you are facing so that you can be sure that you are wearing the right level of protection. This can help to insure you are safe at all times and that the vest is able to work the way that it is meant to work.
Bulletproof vests do a very important job. They help keep many people in law enforcement and the military safe.
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