College Team develops light-weight, portable, protective screen

Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 2 months ago to Science
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That's impressive.

Now I have to wonder what it would take for a shield against a standard .223 or .308 rifle cartridge...


All Comments

  • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Fantastic idea! Probably just a few licensing and IP things to work through there...
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 7 years, 2 months ago
    PBS had a program on Origami and the current uses in real world products. That Police Shield has layers of ballistic materials that are folded in origami fashion to stop handgun rounds. There is research being done according to the program to developes a shield to stop higher velocity rifle rounds.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 7 years, 2 months ago
    The BYU shield is a Class III-A, which protects against nearly all pistol rounds (not sure about the S&W 500). Class IV body shields that protect against rifle rounds usually incorporate a high hardness steel panel, which would make simply incorporating steel panels too heavy for the intended quick, easy deployment. There are ongoing experiments with composite panels that might be acceptable, but the end result would still be imposingly heavy.
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  • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The .223 is the Winchester/Remington .223 - a similar size to the NATO 5.62 mm round but normally used in the US with the AR platform. The .308 Winchester is similar and comparable to the 7.62 used also by the AK.

    Rifle bullets typically are a much higher velocity round due to more powder and longer barrel. It's not atypical for a rifle round to be travelling 3-4x faster than a typical handgun bullet, which means there is that much more kinetic energy to dissipate.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 2 months ago
    Very impressive. I do not know much about firearms. I assume that you mean that the .223 (is that the NATO assault rifle?) and the .308 (is that a hunting rifle?) usually penetrate most kevlar. Well, it is always a conflict between arms and armor, going back to ancient times. Even Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon opens with such a contest at the Baltimore Gun Club.

    Personally, I think that that next advance in armor will be some kind of "field".

    In any case, hats off to the BYU engineers. Kids have bright ideas.
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