Polyethylene Bulletproof Vests Better Than Kevlar 345
teflonscout writes "When I think of bulletproof vests, the first word that comes to mind is Kevlar. Wired is running a story on Dynema SB61, a bulletproof material that is made of polyethylene. It is a higher grade of the plastic found in Tupperware. The story also mentions the recall of Second Chance bulletproof vests that were made from Zylon, a material that degraded slowly when exposed to moisture. At least one police officer was injured when a bullet penetrated his Zylon vest. Polyethylene is impervious to moisture. The first vests made from this new material are 5mm thick and can stop a 9mm bullet traveling at 1777 feet per second, which is slightly better than other top of the line vests."
Back to the drawing board. (Score:5, Funny)
Dynema SB61, a bulletproof material that is made of polyethylene. It is a higher grade of the plastic found in Tupperware.
There goes my idea for a zip-tie & Tupperware bulletproof vest. It also explains why the prototypes failed in the field.
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my question though, will it weigh less than kevlar? every chunk of kevlar that i've held (my father made vests for a while) was extreamly heavy... I'd say if this substance is lighter and allows for more agility it just might be worth it, but again, let's not jepordize safety for mobility
Re:Back to the drawing board. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Back to the drawing board. (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you folks. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.
Re:Back to the drawing board. (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'd think the difference is that the poly absorbs more energy thru phase
Re:Back to the drawing board. (Score:4, Funny)
Ballistics scientists have developed a new style of 9mm bullet made of a stronger polyethelene form of Dynema SB61.
During a test, at least one police officer wearing a Dynema SB61 vest was killed.
The new bullets are expected to be available at all Walmart stores within the next 6 months.
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That it will.
It won't replace a personal flotation device, however. Most PFD's provide somewhere between 11 and 22 lbs of buoyancy, depending on their type (type I having the most, though type III being the most common wearable). It'll be nice that it won't be another piece of clothing to weight you down in the water, but don't expect much help from it, either, unless other types of flotation are incorporated into its design.
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That's what Larry Phillips did for the North Hollywood/Laurel Canyon bank robbery in 1997. His arms, legs and neck were also protected, in addition to his abdomen. It weighed 42 lbs.
Certainly that could be lowered some by proper design, but it would still be heavy. And HOT. Imagine wearing the equivalent of a rubber exercise suit out in the middle
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Re:Back to the drawing board. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Back to the drawing board. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Back to the drawing board. (Score:5, Funny)
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Only if you remember to burp it occasionally.
The Box O' Truth (Score:5, Informative)
tupperware is serious business (Score:3, Funny)
Ok.. and temperature change? (Score:2, Informative)
Not bad... but... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.pinnaclearmor.com/body-armor/dragon-sk
Re:Not bad... but... (Score:5, Informative)
Read the whole article. [washingtonpost.com]
Exerpts:
Actually, the army's tests are in dispute (Score:5, Informative)
Independent tests [msn.com] do not support the army's conclusions. Since there is already some question about the validity of the army's tests (e.g. the designer of the vest that "won" in the army's test says that dragon skin is actually better, the person who conducted the army tests left to work for a dragon skin competitor, etc.) I don't think just repeating the army's conclusions (or quoting the Washington Compost as doing so) really proves anything.
--MarkusQ
Re:Actually, the army's tests are in dispute (Score:5, Interesting)
Nor do they cleanly invalidate them. The article plainly states (in several places) that these tests were not the equivalent of the Army tests, and the Dragon Skin vests were not subjected (by the independent investigator) to the full range of enviromental tests that the Army requires.
And repeating MSN's conclusions without (seemingly) understanding the caveats they place on each and every page proves what exactly? That sources you approve of are intrinsically better than sources you disaprove of?
(Disclaimer: I don't much care about the debate either way. Not that the disclaimer will sway anyone - politics are generally more important than intellectual honesty.)
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This is May 24.
Not August.
120 F is routine for these guys.
There are areas of deployment in Afghanistan that are routinely -20 F. A -20 to 120 degree temp. tolerance is a very reasonable requirement.
We've already been through this exercise with a different brand of body armor that didn't stand up to high temperatures very well.
impervious to water, how about body heat? (Score:2)
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It's probably still pretty damn hot, and heavier than one would prefer. I'd be interested to see how this performs when coupled with some of the liquid armor [military.com] tech the military has been working on.
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Re:impervious to water, how about body heat? (Score:5, Funny)
That's why you lacquer the chestplates in white to dissipate heat, and give them a black spandex bodysuit underneath...add a scary looking helmet and most of your vitals are covered. In theory it should deflect blaster bolts. Where I'm stationed we wear them all the time (I work in law enforcement).
In practice, they don't stop crap. Like last week this scruffy-looking nutjob with a walking carpet for a sidekick breaks in to rescue his girlfriend. Next thing we know there's a weapons malfunction down in the cell block, and four of my buddies find out the chestplates don't quite work as advertised.
I hate this posting...maybe I can get transferred before something else goes wrong.
- TK421
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You'd think so, wouldn't you? Well, let me tell you, I'm an independent contractor in a project the Empire has going on over there and even though the money is good and we get lots of benefits (it's a government contract after all), I fear for my life. Heck, a friend of mine refused to take the job because of the risk, but I'm just trying to scrape a living, I have no personal politics.
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Am I the only one who finds this incredibly amusing coming from someone named TrekkieGod?
I did wonder if someone would comment on that :)
Contrary to popular belief it is possible to be both a trekkie and a star wars fan. It's not like we're members of violent factions locked in an endless war against one another. And when we are fighting, we're more comparable to the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story. We go out in gang colors (uniforms) whistling Jerry Goldsmith stuff while the other side whistles John Williams. I don't think any actual killing can go on, unless I were to date some
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Subject E-11 Blaster Rifle Calibration Still Off
From Stormtrooper Commander 09731
Date A Long Time Ago 3:51 PM
To Nardo Pace
As you know, the E-11 has come a long way since its initial prototype. Thanks to your hard work over the past three years the rifle no longer fires completely sideways, and with your latest revision, the number of casualties resulting from blaster fire being directed completely backwards has been drastically reduced.
That said
Re:impervious to water, how about body heat? (Score:5, Informative)
Dyneema is actually a trade name for a thread derived from Ultra High Molecular Weight polyethylene. The intrinsic strength of the material comes from the ability to increase the length of the polyethylene chain to extreme lengths. Since the structure of UHMW derives its strength mostly from the intermolecular Van-der Waals forces, the longer the polythethylene chains get, the stronger the forces holding the material together become. When the processing of the polythylene allows the length of the chains to become uniform, then you can engineer it into useful forms, such as a fiber which eventually be formed into fabric, then laminated and put on your chest.
Of course, being UHMW, Dyneema has a weakness: Its melting point is about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, or about the temperature of a hot light bulb. Which means that while your body heat might not harm the vest, carelessness in storage might.
Re:impervious to water, how about body heat? (Score:5, Informative)
Its highly recommended to wear *cotton* and not nylon clothes, for example, because cotton won't melt to your skin if you survive an IED attack.
Question (Score:2)
~S
Tupperware vests? (Score:5, Funny)
I'll trust it ... (Score:2)
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.. yards .. (Score:2)
Re:I'll trust it ... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you haven't heard about the history of "second chance" one of the very first commercial vest manufacturers, that is basically how they sold it. Walk into a police station, pull a gun, shoot oneself at point blank. Put the gun, vest, and business card on the front desk and walk out. As I understand they arrested the founder (Richard Davis) for firing a pistol within city limits, and placed a huge order. He eventually had to quit doing it because all the bruises from the gunshots were starting to give him heart problems.
Second Chance (Score:3, Interesting)
Looked pretty unpleasant -- he immediately fell down, and it took a few seconds before it was clear that he had not, in fact, been shot -- but damned impressive.
Re:Second Chance (Score:4, Informative)
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What kind of idiot would walk into a police station and pull a gun? (And what kind of police force w
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What kind of idiot would walk into a police station and pull a gun?
In the early 70's, guns were not as big of a deal in the US and were not treated with quite the same hysteria they now are. Mr Davis was a former marine and a pizza shop owner who had been shot several times while working. He was one of the pioneers of the bulletproof vest market. There are plenty of videos of him online, shooting himself while wearing a vest, usually with a .38. He did it at conferences around the country. I have little doubt he knew the legal implications, but was willing to suffer them
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And new laws to federally prohibit (Score:2)
3.... 2....
Guess I'm just cynical.
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The big deal with this stuff isn't how effective it is...There's not much difference between it and kevlar...But kevlar weighs a hell
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Either way, assault rifle rounds like 5.56 NATO and 7.62x39mm (along with any rifle round commonly viewed as suitable for deer hunting) don't have too much trouble with the body armor typically worn by police.
Re:And new laws to federally prohibit (Score:5, Interesting)
When the spitzer (pointed) bullet was developed in an effort to improve the bullet's aerodynamics and increase range, a secondary effect was discovered. The longer point of the spitzer bullets caused the center of gravity to be pushed more toward the rear of the bullet. This resulted in bullets that were inherently inclined to travel backwards. The gun's rifling was adequate to stabilize these bullets in a point forward orientation through the air, but when they encountered a denser medium (such as a human body) the bullets would tumble as it tried to reorient it's self. The tumbling bullet caused much more sever wounding than the 'icepick' type wounds seen with the older round-nose bullets. Often the combination of tumbling and centrifugal forces (bullets commonly spin in excess of 100,000 rpm) causes the bullet to break into fragments and cause even more nasty wounds (often far worse than what would be seen with soft-point or hollow-point expanding bullets).
Bullet fragmentation is a critical factor in the wounding characteristics of modern military rifle bullets.
How does it compare (Score:2)
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One word. (Score:4, Informative)
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics
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Etcetera (Score:2)
One of the coolest thing I recall seeing - I forget if it was on the Military Channel or Discovery - was body armor made from a material (sorry forgot what it is/was might have been spider silk) that would act as a body of water and ripple off the impact of a bullet to reduce the point of entry thereby leaving the target
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I somewhat doubt it.
on the one hand you have companies developing armor on the other you have companies developing weapons. Armour manufacturers will reasearch what the weapon manufacturers are doing and vice-versa and attempt to counter it and users of the equipment will just adjust what proportion of thier weight or financial budgets they spend on each so that the armour on the battlefield stays balanced with th
Re:Etcetera (Score:4, Informative)
Most current suits of body armor can stop a pistol caliber bullet. Rounds designed to pierce armor, or designed to be fired from a more powerful gun, are another story. Armor that will stop a small, soft bullet will still be penetrated by a faster, or less malleable one.
For civilian or police protection, we have nearly impenetrable suits now; increasing their coverage, or decreasing their weight would be more practical (both of which can be achieved by making them out of lighter materials). For something like military protection, well, we may never have impenetrable body armor. Whenever defensive technology gets good enough, the military turns their attention to piercing those defenses; see for example the death of the battleship as a viable class of warship.
Apart from that, conservation of momentum applies. There is an upper limit whereby body armor would remain intact, while the flesh beneath is reduced to a pulp. Though admittedly conservation of momentum also applies to the shooter, and to the recoil of their gun, so there is a similar upper limit for muzzle velocity per unit of projectile mass.
Re:Etcetera (Score:4, Informative)
Thanks for the warning (Score:5, Funny)
Dynema? (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, would rather not have my bulletproof vest sound like it's a cross of high explosives and bowel cleansing kits.
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Dynema (aka Dyneema or Dynex) is an established brand name already, at least in mountaineering. The best [mammut.ch] climbing [mammut.ch] gear [blackdiamo...ipment.com] uses Dynema. 22kN break strength on a light 8mm wide nice and flexible ribbon that hardly gets wet - super stuff.
Tupperware? (Score:2, Funny)
Kitchen now most important room in stockpiled home (Score:2, Funny)
Nothing is bullet-PROOF. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Something to the effect of:
"Where'd you get the money to buy that tazer?"
"I bought it with the money that I saved from buying these bullet resistant vests."
"Bullet resistant?! The shirt is wrinkle resistant but see this [wrinkles vest] - still gets wrinkles!"
Still better light-weight armor out there... (Score:2, Redundant)
Dragon Skin bullet proof vests are light weight but can stop (multiple) armor piercing rounds. That's rather impressive.
They use silver-dollar sized "scales" of ceramics. If it's as light and flexible as advertised, this is far better for soldiers and law enforcement.
Same dynema??? (Score:2)
At last I understand (Score:3, Funny)
Instead of a vest... (Score:2, Funny)
C|Net? or something.. (Score:2)
And then I never heard another thing about it. I assume there's some
combine with liquid armor? (Score:3, Interesting)
But are they really BETTER? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are there any other benefits? Not to underscore the vest's foremost job (stopping bullets) but if there is only a "slight" improvement over existing vests I don't find this all that newsworthy.
Without answers to these questions, these vests will be nothing more than a "slightly better for a lot more money" niche solution.
Cop's widow wins lawsuit over vest - made of Zylon (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.whistleblowers.org/Cop_s_widow_wins.ht
LoB
Science of similar fibers - links (Score:4, Informative)
As with anything, the devil's in the details. From a previous trip around the web in re: bodyarmor.
It's not Tupperware, but 'Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene' [wikipedia.org].
See also:
Spectra [honeywell.com]
Dyneema [dsm.com]
Aramids (from "aromatic polyamide") [wikipedia.org]
- Example: Twaron [twaron.com]
Kevlar [wikipedia.org], of course.
Also Nomex [wikipedia.org] - known for it's heat-resistant attributes, also strong. It's an "aromatic nylon, the meta variant of the para-aramid Kevlar."
Stopping AP rounds is all well and good, (Score:3, Insightful)
If I could invent two types of armor, one that worked against a 30mm round, but looked like the bomb disposal suit, and a piece of armor that only worked against 22 caliber rimfire, but looked and felt identical to a cotton T-shirt; the Tshirt-like armor would be the real success.
hey, my ph.d. project is on this.. (Score:5, Interesting)
As it happens, dyneema is highly stretched polyethylene. As such, it melts at a fairly low temperature (and performs less well before reaching such temeratures. Temperatures around 80 degrees centigrade would do...). Twaron and Kevlar are aramids. They decompose at around 400 degrees, and hardly any change in performance is seen.
Now, 80 degrees C is a quite high temperature, but with a (desert) sun baking on a vest, I would rather wear the slightly heavier aramid vest.
B.
About 20 years late, slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Since it's commercialization it has been in wide use throughout the world, and has had performance advantages over aramid fibers like Kevlar. In addition to great performance it is also significatly less expensive, and the manufacturing process has much lower environmental impact.
subject is inaccurate (Score:5, Informative)
The officer in that shooting was shot 6 or 7 times. *ONE* bullet penetrated the Zylon, and it was on the periphery of the vest. The edges of *ANY* vest are vulnerable and not as strong as center-mass.
Second chance has 960+ confirmed saves with their body armor.
What they've done to the second chance business as a result is, on the whole, a travesty. They were/are one of the few american manufacturers, and they did nothing wrong at all.
Re:subject is inaccurate (Score:4, Informative)
Not surprised (Score:4, Informative)
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Polystyrene Bulletproof Vests Better Than Caviar (Score:4, Funny)
Re:to bad our troops are treated like shit (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, don't flame the truth. Rather, flame the complete ignorance of the process by which new technologies trickle down to soldiers from the numerous trials and tests.
If it's good enough, it will eventually be used. The question then will be whether troops will still be in Iraq at that time.
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And the correct answer to this query is:
wait for it...
Yes.
Re:to bad our troops are treated like shit (Score:4, Interesting)
Like the stuff that's good enough that we already have, that to my knowledge, still isn't being used in Iraq?
Maybe it's a few months out of date, but last I heard, the only troops who have bullet resistant body armor over there are the ones who's families bought/shipped it, or got it from an NPO that is buying them and shipping them to the troops.
Re:to bad our troops are treated like shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite. There's a lot of good products that should be used, but they aren't because of the almighty dollar. Usually it takes a few dead bodies, the tears of weeping mothers, pointed fingers, and fistfuls of public rage to force the government to supply adequate equipment to its troops. And even then they only supply it because of public image.
Box Of Truth (Score:2)
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Re:Box Of Truth (Score:4, Insightful)
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Polyaramid fibers like kevlar may lose strength when they get wet, but polyethylene generally doesn't tolerate heat very well.
Re:The Future of Tupperware Parties (Score:5, Funny)
And it really brings a whole new dimension to crotchpot cooking.
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Re:"New Material for Thinner, Lighter Body Armor" (Score:4, Informative)
1) You are equating weight with stopping power for different materials. That is an incorrect comparison. That might make sense when comparing two vests of the same material and design. Vest A has 10 lbs of Kevlar, Vest B has 20 lbs Kevlar. Both vests are of similar designs and Vest B should be better at stopping bullets. However if another company designed a different type vest (Vest C) with Kevlar that had better stopping power but only used 10 lbs Kevlar, the use of weight alone in comparing effectiveness would not be valid.
2) Body armor is heavy, especially considering all the other gear a soldier has to carry. If body armor was lighter and provided the same amount of protection, many soldiers would prefer it.
Re:"New Material for Thinner, Lighter Body Armor" (Score:5, Insightful)
I've worn the modern vests, and while they aren't nearly as bad as they were 10 years ago, they still aren't good. If I could get the same protection from something even a quarter less weight, I'd make the switch without a second thought. That two or three extra pounds can mean the difference of being able to march my ass another couple of kilometers to safety or have a few extra rounds of ammunition when I really need it. That's a huge mental advantage, and despite all we say about war, it's the mental aspects (on the soldier) that make it difficult in the long run.