Lightweight ceramic armor with improved blunt trauma protection

摘要

The invention relates to armor that is intended to withstand and provide protection against blunt trauma or ballistic impact from a projectile or the impact of a stabbing weapon. Such impacts on the armor may transmit a high localized load to the body of the wearer. The invention reduces the intensity of this loading thereby reducing tissue trauma. The invention uses one or more layers of an energy absorbing material that contains a large volume fraction of fluid filled free space, distributed throughout an internal cellular structure that accommodates deformation on one surface without passing on the same degree of deformation to its adjacent surface. It is, in effect, a highly compressible layer that disperses a dynamic load applied normal to its surface (resulting for example from the bullet impact) into a more laterally extensive pressure distribution. When this material is combined with reinforcing fiber material layers, the deformation reduction is further enhanced.