Reactive armour is a type of vehicle armour used in protecting vehicles, especially modern tanks, against shaped charges and hardened kinetic energy penetrators. The most common type is explosive reactive armour (ERA), but variants include self-limiting explosive reactive armour (SLERA), non-energetic reactive armour (NERA), non-explosive reactive armour (NxRA), and electric armour. NERA and NxRA modules can withstand multiple hits, unlike ERA and SLERA.
A bulletproof vest, also known as a ballistic vest or a bullet-resistant vest, is an item of body armour that helps absorb the impact and reduce or stop penetration to the torso by firearm-fired projectiles and fragmentation from explosions. The vest may come in a soft form, as worn by many police officers, prison officers, security guards, and some private citizens, used to protect against stabbing attacks or light projectiles, or hard form, using metallic or para-aramid components. Soldiers and police tactical units wear hard armour, either in conjunction with soft armour or alone, to protect against rifle ammunition or fragmentation.
Chobham armour is the informal name of a composite armour developed in the 1960s at the British tank research centre on Chobham Common, Surrey. The name has since become the common generic term for composite ceramic vehicle armour. Other names informally given to Chobham armour include Burlington and Dorchester. Special armour is a broader informal term referring to any armour arrangement comprising sandwich reactive plates, including Chobham armour.
Polycarbonates (PC) are a group of thermoplastic polymers containing carbonate groups in their chemical structures. Polycarbonates used in engineering are strong, tough materials, and some grades are optically transparent. They are easily worked, molded, and thermoformed. Because of these properties, polycarbonates find many applications. Polycarbonates do not have a unique resin identification code (RIC) and are identified as "Other", 7 on the RIC list. Products made from polycarbonate can contain the precursor monomer bisphenol A (BPA).
A flak jacket or flak vest is a form of body armor. A flak jacket is designed to provide protection from case fragments ("frag") from high explosive weaponry, such as anti-aircraft artillery, grenade fragments, some types of pellets used in shotguns, and other lower-velocity projectiles. It is not designed to protect against bullets fired from most small arms such as rifles or handguns. However flak jackets are able to sustain certain gunshots, depending on the angle at which the shot was fired, the caliber of the bullet, the speed of the projectile and the range from which the shot was fired.
Military vehicles are commonly armoured to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, shells, rockets, and missiles, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include armoured fighting vehicles like tanks, aircraft, and ships.
Body armor, personal armor, armored suit (armoured) or coat of armor, among others, is protective clothing designed to absorb or deflect physical attacks. Historically used to protect military personnel, today it is also used by various types of police, private security guards, or bodyguards, and occasionally ordinary citizens. Today there are two main types: regular non-plated body armor for moderate to substantial protection, and hard-plate reinforced body armor for maximum protection, such as used by combatants.
Bulletproofing is the process of making an object capable of stopping a bullet or similar high velocity projectiles. The term bullet resistance is often preferred because few, if any, practical materials provide complete protection against all types of bullets, or multiple hits in the same location, or simply sufficient kinetic (movement) energy to overcome it.
A ballistic plate, also known as an armour plate, is a protective armoured plate inserted into a carrier or bulletproof vest, that can be used stand-alone, or in conjunction with other armour. "Hard armour" usually denotes armour that uses ballistic plates.
Aluminium oxynitride is a transparent ceramic composed of aluminium, oxygen and nitrogen. Aluminium oxynitride is optically transparent (≥ 80%) in the near-ultraviolet, visible, and mid-wave-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is four times as hard as fused silica glass, 85% as hard as sapphire, and nearly 115% as hard as magnesium aluminate spinel. It can be fabricated into transparent windows, plates, domes, rods, tubes, and other forms using conventional ceramic powder processing techniques.
Armour with two or more plates spaced a distance apart falls under the category of spaced armour. Spaced armour can be sloped or unsloped. When sloped, it reduces the penetrating power of bullets and solid shot, as after penetrating each plate projectiles tend to tumble, deflect, deform, or disintegrate; spaced armour that is not sloped is generally designed to provide protection from explosive projectiles, which detonate before reaching the primary armour. Spaced armour is used on military vehicles such as tanks and combat bulldozers. In a less common application, it is used in some spacecraft that use Whipple shields.
Laminated glass is a type of safety glass consisting of two or more layers of glass with one or more thin polymer interlayers between them which prevent the glass from breaking into large sharp pieces. Breaking produces a characteristic "spider web" cracking pattern when the impact is not enough to completely pierce the glass.
A ballistic shield, also called a tactical shield or bulletproof shield, is a protection device deployed by police, paramilitaries, and armed forces that are designed to stop or deflect bullets and other projectiles fired at their carrier. Ballistic shields also protect from less serious threats such as thrown items. Ballistic shields are similar to riot shields, but offer greater protection and are typically used by special units or in situations where riot shields would not offer adequate protection.
Ceramic armor is armor used by armored vehicles and in personal armor to resist projectile penetration through its high hardness and compressive strength. In its most basic form, it consists of two primary components: A ceramic layer on the outer surface, called the "strike face," backed up by a ductile fiber reinforced plastic composite or metal layer. The role of the ceramic is to (1) fracture the projectile or deform the projectile nose upon impact, (2) erode and slow down the projectile remnant as it penetrates the shattered ceramic layer, and (3) distribute the impact load over a larger area, which can be absorbed by ductile polymer or metallic backings. Ceramics are often used where light weight is important, as they weigh less than metal alloys for a given degree of resistance. The most common materials are alumina, boron carbide, and, to a lesser extent, silicon carbide.
Liquid armour is a material under research by defense institutions and universities around the world including the United States Army Research Laboratory (ARL). Some of the earliest research in this area was performed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Delaware in 2003. Liquid armor was initially presented as a way to increase the survivability of soldiers in high risk roles while retaining their mobility, as reported by NPR in an interview with MIT professors and a U.S. admiral.
Twin-wall plastic, specifically twin-wall polycarbonate, is an extruded multi-wall polymer product created for applications where its strength, thermally insulative properties, and moderate cost are ideal. Polycarbonate, which is most commonly formed through the reaction of Bisphenol A and Carbonyl Chloride, is an extremely versatile material. It is significantly lighter than glass, while managing to be stronger, more flexible, and more impact resistant. Twin-wall polycarbonate is used most commonly for green houses, where it can support itself in a structurally sound configuration, limit the amount of UV light due to its nominal translucence, and can withstand the rigors of daily abuse in an outdoor environment. The stagnant air in the cellular space between sheets provides insulation, and additional cell layers can be extruded to enhance insulative properties at the cost of light transmission.
Ballistic eyewear is a form of glasses or goggles that protect from small projectiles and fragments. For the U.S. military, choices are listed on the Authorized Protective Eyewear List (APEL). Ballistic eyewear including examples that meet APEL requirements are commercially available for anyone who wishes to buy it. The history of protective eyewear goes back to 1880 and extends through to World War I and the present. There are three standards that are currently used to test the effectiveness of ballistic eyewear. These include a U.S. civilian standard, a U.S. military standard (MIL-PRF-31013), and a European standard.
Armor has been used in the military for a long period of time during the course of history, but is becoming more frequently seen in the public sector as time passes. There are many different forms and ways that armor is being commercially used throughout the world today. The most popular and well-known uses are body and vehicle armor. There are other commercial uses including aircraft armor and armored glass.
The polyurethane urea elastomer (PUU), or poly(urethane urea) elastomer, is a flexible polymeric material that is composed of linkages made out of polyurethane and polyurea compounds. Due to its hyperelastic properties, it is capable of bouncing back high-speed ballistic projectiles as if the material had “hardened” upon impact. PUUs were developed by researchers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the Army’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to potentially replace polyethylene materials in body armor and other protective gear, such as combat helmets, face shields, and ballistic vests.
