So I’ve seen some videos of people talking about bullet-resistant plates where instead of a single large piece of ceramic to absorb a bunch of kinetic energy and crack the whole thing with one shot, it will hit a small piece of ceramic that are all put together and only break one or two pieces.
My question is, why are the small pieces created by a bullet hitting a large piece different than the small pieces you put intentionally?
In: 7
The difference is that, in the standard, single strike face plate, the entire surface can crack rather than one small portion.
Anytime a crack is introduced, the structure of the ceramic is compromised and it’s ability to protect against further impacts is likewise compromised.
This is because, in part, the ceramic absorbs the impact of the bullet by using the kinetic energy of the bullet to crack the ceramic
If you have a small ceramic plate, then the cracking will begin and end within the confines of that smaller plate.
So for example, if you had one large plate, 60% of it may be compromised to some degree by one impact. It will likely still stop other projectiles that impact in other locations on the plate, but it’s integrity is compromised nonetheless and it will have less of a chance at working.
Now imagine 100 small plates making up the face of the armor. If one of these plates takes an impact it will completely shatter and likely will not stop any further impacts. However, because there is 99 other plates, only 1% of the total surface has been compromised, so the odds of stopping a further impact is still fairly high.
This is the general concept.
There are added benefits such as flexibility as well, and those tend to be strong selling points as traditional plates restrict your movement pretty severely.
There is a reason that it’s not the industry standard yet however, so keep that in mind if you’re looking to buy plates or plate carriers. (You typically have to go with a proprietary setup to accommodate the sectioned plates like the safe life FRAS)
Latest Answers