Body Armor for IED

Body Armor for IED: A Bibliography

• Medical Aspects of IED Injuries

• IED

• IED Countermeasures

• Status & New Developments in Body Armor

• Body Armor Materials

• Performance of Body Armor

• Manufacturing of Body Armor

• The Business of Body Armor

• Sizing and Field Testing

• Miscellaneous

Medical Aspects of IED Injuries

• Protecting Military Convoys in Iraq: An Examination of Battle Injuries Sustained by a Mechanized Battalion during Operation Iraqi Freedom II. Joseph S. Gondusky and Michael Reiter. Military Medicine (Published by Association of Military Surgeons Of The U.S.). Vol.170. No.6. June 2005. Pgs. 546-549.
  IEDs and mines injured 120 marines in a mechanized battalion during this operation. Their injuries are categorized and discussed. Available from Ingenta.

• Blast and Penetrating Fragment Injuries to the Extremities. Y.A. Weil, R. Mosheiff and M. Liebergall. Journal of American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery. Vol.14. Pgs. S136-S139. (2006).

• Blast Injuries. Blast Injurie. Ralph G. DePalma, David G. Burris, Howard R. Champion, and Michael J. Hodgson. New England Journal of Medicine. Vol.352. No.13. Pgs. 1335-1342. (31 March 2005).
  Review summarizes the mechanisms and clinical consequences of blast injuries.

• Contemporary Management of Wartime Vascular Trauma. CJ Fox, DL Gillespie, SD O'Donnell, TE Rasmussen, JM Goff, CA Johnson, RE Galgon, TP Sarac, and NM Rich. Vascular Surgery. Vol.41. No.4. Pgs 638-644. (April 2005).
  Large study of 3057 soldiers evacuated for medical evaluation from Dec. 2001 - March 2004, focuses on blast injuries. Wound patterns indicate a high percentage of extremity injuries. Current vascular injuries are similar to past experiences (WWII, Korea, Vietnam). Extremity vascular injuries to the brachial artery (inside upper arm) and SFA (superficial femoral artery) (inside thigh) are the most common. 64 percent of the vascular injuries resulted from IEDs and 90 percent of the IED injuries involved the extremities. Abstract available from PubMed.

• Predictors of Mortality in Close Proximity Blast Injuries During Operation Iraqi Freedom. T. Nelson, D. Wall, E. Stedje-Larsen, R. Clark, L. Chambers, and H. Bohman. Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Vol.202. No.3. Pgs. 418-422. Available on Science Direct.

• Caring for the Wounded in Iraq - A Photo Essay. George E. Peoples, James R. Jezior, and Craig D. Shriver. The New England Journal of Medicine. Vol.351. Pgs.2476 - 2480. (Dec. 2004). Full text and images available free from HighWire (sciencemag.org)
  Several photos of blast injuries and their treatment.

• Burns Sustained in Combat Explosions in Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF explosion burns). David S. Kauvar, Steven E. Wolf, Charles E. Wade, Leopoldo C. Cancio, Evan M. Renz and John B. Holcomb. Burns. Vol.32. No.7. Pgs 853-857. (November 2006). Available on Science Direct.
  5 percent of those medically evacuated from Iraq have been due to burns. Many of those burns resulted from explosion of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). This study reports on burn severity and burn patterns. 55 percent of those treated at the U.S. military's only burn center (USAISR in San Antonio) were treated for burns resulting from IED. Burns result from the heat of the original explosion and from secondary effects of burning vehicles, clothing and equipment. The author's note burns were concentrated in areas not protected by clothing or equipment. (Possible additional feature of Body Armor for IED)

• A New Nonpenetrating Ballistic Injury. AW Carrol and CA Soderstrom. Annals of Surgery. Vol.188. No.6. Pgs. 753-757. (1978) PubMed has an abstract.
  Discusses the injuries related to being hit by a bullet while wearing soft body armor. Although the bullet does not come through, the impact is still passed on to your body. Guidelines for patient management are suggested.

• Computational and Experimental Models of the Human Torso for Non-penetrating Ballistic Impact. JC Roberts, AC Merkle, PJ Biermann, EE Ward, BG Carkhuff, RP Cain, and JV O"Connor. Journal of Biomechanics. Vol.40. No.1. Pgs. 125-136. (2007). PubMed has an Abstract
  Finite element and experimental models of the human torso are developed for impact ballistics testing.

IED

• Improvised Explosive Devices: Pipe Bombs. JC Oxley, JL Smith, E. Resende, E Rogers, RA Strobel, and EC Bender. Journal of Forensic Sciences. Vol.46. No.3. Pgs. 510-534. (May 2001).
  Fragments were collected from 56 pipe bombs. The devices and fragmentation patterns are discussed. A FWDM (Fragment Weight Distribution Map) is developed that describes explosive power by its slope.

• Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan: Effects and Countermeasures. Wilson Clay. CRS Report for Congress. Updated 25 Sep 2006. Order Code RS22330.
  No discussion of body armor, but considerable discussion of IED and countermeasures to them.

• Surge of Danger for U.S. Troops. Robert Bryce. Salon. 22 Jan 2007.
  Nice analysis of the IED problem. Includes a chart of deaths by month, discusses some of the psychological threats related to IEDs. Reports explosives in shallow metal tubes can propel a plate at the front of the weapon, usually steel or copper, as a molten metallic "dart" at speeds up to 2,000 meters per second capable of penetrating 4 inch thick armor at 100 meters.

• Explosively Formed Projectiles. AFRL Horizons (Air Force Research Laboratory) Briefs. Dec. 2004.
  They created and recovered EFPs designed for penetrating armor to model the shock physics and behavior.

• Shaped Charge. GlobalSecurity.org web site.
  Discussion of Explosively Formed Projectile (EFP) and related weapons, along with a history of their development and use. Article is not directly related to roadside bomb applications, but still useful in understanding the approach.

IED Countermeasures

• Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan: Effects and Countermeasures. Sept. 2006. CRS Report for Congress (Congressional Research Service). Report # RS22330.
  Covers basics of IED, delivery methods, and countermeasures. No discussion of body armor.

• Adaptive Foe Thwarts Counter-IED Efforts. National Defense (NDIA). Jan. 2006.
  As U.S. forces have become more successful at avoiding IED, insurgents have become more creative and pushed technologies up a few levels from simple trip wire to infrared devices. The article calls it "Spectral Combat" as both sides do battle in the radio and infrared spectra.
• Counter improvised Explosive Device (IED) Basic Research. Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). Office of Naval Research. ONR BAA Announcement # ONR 05-024. July 2004.
  A request for proposals.

• Mock 'IEDs' Help Soldiers Prepare for War. Sandra Erwin. National Defense (NDIA). Dec. 2005.
  The Army is buying 800 "fake" IEDs for simulation training. Each "fake" IED is reloadable and can be used repeatedly. They come in a few variants (one looks like a 155mm shell, one is a pressure sensitive mine, another has a booby trap tripwire. They generate smoke and noise on explosion. The use of "fake" IED allows the Army to think like insurgents in placing the devices and learn from their experiences.

Status & New Developments in Body Armor

• Amid Bursting Bombs, Services Seek Better Body Armor. Harold Kennedy. National Defense (NDIA). October 2005.
  Reports Iraqi insurgents are attacking coalition forces with IED an estimated 30 times per week. Talks about the performance of Interceptor Body Armor, the recall of 5,000 plus vests by the USMC, some of the tension about getting enough vests to Iraq fast enough, new materials (Honeywell's Spectra and DSM's Dyneema), the Cupola Protective Ensemble (CPE), the Deltoid and Axillary Protector, QuadGuard, M5 fiber, and other developments.

• Researchers, Manufacturers Search for Better Body Armor. Joe Pappalardo. National Defense (NDIA). August 2004.
  Reports on current status, problems and possible future developments. Very well done.

Body Armor Materials

• Body Armour - Technological Issues. Military Technology. 1 April 2006.
  Excellent review of the various materials, their advantages and disadvantages, for both soft and hard body armor. A discussion of liquid body armor (shear thickening fluids), protection vs. mobility tradeoffs, and NIJ standards. (Available on Factavia)

• The Ballistic Performance of Narrow Fabrics. C.R. Cork and P.W. Foster. International Journal of Impact Engineering. Vol.34. No.3. Pgs.495-508. (March 2007). Available on Science Direct.
  Narrow strips of traditional body armor fabrics were found to provide better protection to bullets and shrapnel than the traditional larger panels. Design ideas were put forward to take advantage of this without loosing ground to the weakness between the adjoining strips.

• Engineer's Trick Builds Tougher Body Armour. Charles Choi. New Scientist. Issue 2566. 29 Aug. 2006.
  MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies is developing lightweight armour for soldiers using nanotechnologies to create networks of microscopic trusses.

• The Rheology and Microstructure of Acicular Precipitated Calcium Carbonate Colloidal Suspensions Through the Shear Thickening Transition. Ronald G. Egres and Norman J. Wagner. Journal of Rheology. Vol.49. No.3. Pgs.719-746. (May/Jun 2005).
  Liquid Armor - investigation of the mechanisms of fluids being suspended in Kevlar to increase its stopping power.

• Ballistic Impact into Fabric and Compliant Composite Laminates. Bryan A. Cheeseman and Travis A. Bogetti. Composite Structures. Vol.61. Pgs. 161-173. (July 2003). Available on Science Direct.

• Advanced Body Armor Utilizing Shear Thickening Fluids Eric D. Wetzel and Norman J. Wagner. 23rd Army Science Conference Orlando FL 3 Dec 2002.
  Use of shear thickening fluids to improved performance of ballistic fabrics. Several mentions of how this could provide flexibility to armor for the extremities.

• Dimensionless Parameters for Optimization of Textile-Based Body Armor Systems. PM Cundiff. 18th International Symposium on Ballistics.1999.

Performance of Body Armor

• Does Body Armor Protect from Firearm Injuries? Kobi Peleg, Avraham Rivkind and Limor Aharonson-Daniel. Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Vol.202. No.4. Apr. 2006. Pgs. 643-648. Available on Science Direct.
  Charts show locations of firearms wounds by frequency to soldiers and civilians. 66 percent of the wounded soldiers in the study were shot in the extremities.

• The Development of a Quantitative Flexibility Test for Body Armour and Comparison with Wearer Trials. I. Horsfall, S.M. Champion and C.H. Watson. Applied Ergonomics. Vol.36. No.3. Pgs. 283-292. (May 2005). Available from Science Direct.
  They basically measured the force needed to push it through a large hole and found it correlated with user reports on flexibility.

• A New Membrane Model for the Ballistic Impact Response and V50 Performance of Multi-ply Fibrous Systems. S. Leigh Phoenix and Pankaj K. Porwal. International Journal of Solids and Structures. Vol.40. Pgs. 6723-6765. Available on Science Direct.
  Lengthy development and verification of a model for ballistic impact response of fabrics.
  Model is for blunt cylindrical projectiles.

• A Review of 41 Upper Extremity War Injuries and the Protective Gear Worn During Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. MA Greer MA (Greer. ME Miklos-Essenberg, and S. Harrison-Weaver. Military Medicine. Vol.171. No.7. Pgs. 595-597. (July 2006).
  Questionnaire was administered to recovering soldiers on their injuries and what they were wearing to gain insights into effectiveness of current body armor and the need for new or modified gear.

• Modeling Gunshot Bruises in Soft Body Armor With an Adaptive Fuzzy System. I Lee I, B Kosko, and WF Anderson. IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics Part B- Cybernetics. Vol.35. No.6. Pgs. 1374-1390. (Dec. 2005).
  Handguns were shot at armor with a gelatin backing (gelatin simulated tissue). Bullet weight and and momentum correlated with depth of its impact into armor clad gelatin. Baseball impacts were found to be similar to bullet armor impacts. Getting shot with a 22 in soft body armor correlated to being hit by a 40 mph baseball, while being hit by a 45 caliber handgun while wearing soft body armor equated to being hit by a 90 mph baseball.

Manufacturing of Body Armor

• Body Armour Offers Police Officers a Second Chance. Reinforced Plastics. Vol.45. No.2. Pgs.44-45. (February 2001).
  A research director at Second Chance, a body armor manufacturer, talks about the addition of a new cutting system, GERBERcutter, and its impact on production rates.

The Business of Body Armor

• Industry Analysis for Body Armor Procurement. MBA Professional Report. Coleen Foust and Christopher Jensen. Naval Postgraduate School. Monterey, California. December 2006.
  An excellent industry report, it focuses on procurement, but also includes good coverage of the market, a review of the players and other relevant business information. Adobe Page 57 (real page 41) is especially interesting with its Industry Product Flow Diagram showing how the several sub industries (fiber producers, powder producers, ceramic plate producers, fabric vest producers, and body armor manufacturers work together, and the major companies involved, including the governing organizations. Deltoid and Axillary Protectors are on Adobe page 65-66.

• Ceradyne: Profits Made With Pride: Company's Body Armor Saves Troops' Lives. Lexington Herald-Leader (KY). 12 March 2007. Available via EBSCO Newspaper Source.
  300 employees work 12 hour shifts to keep 3 production lines running around the clock producing lightweight ceramic body armor for U.S. troops. Ceradyne estimates it has a 90 percent market share. Revenues nearly doubled in 2006 while profits nearly tripled. Their furnaces have not shut down since they were lit in January 2005 and they anticipate receiving a 5 year order from the government in the next 5 or 6 weeks that will keep them busy till 2012.

• DHB Industries Gears Up For Competition as Army Calls for Body-Armor redesign: A New Vested Interest. Newsday. 11 May 2006. Available on EBSCO Newspaper Source.
  The U.S. Army is requesting ideas for the next body armor to replace the Interceptor built by DHB. Armor Holdings acquired Second Chance last year and is expected to enter the competition along with Ceradyne.
• Armor Holdings 2006 Annual Report. Armor Holdings is a large diversified company, but a significant portion of their income is derived from the sale of SAPI plate inserts for Body Armor. Their annual reports provides some insight into the business from their perspective.

Sizing and Field Testing

• Future Warrior Engineering Design Event Number 4. Daniel Turner, Christian Carstens and Joseph Torre. Army Research Laboratory. ARL-TR-3626. Oct 2005.
  Discusses some of the sizing issues, the shortage of current of anthropometric data, and provides several photos of field testing including all the associated gear.

• Using Shock Wave Simulation to Optimize Body Armor: Advanced Computational Modeling Helps to Improve Protective Gear Designs. Thomas Friend. Scientific Computing & Instrumentation. April 2005.
  CFD Research Corp. (CFDRC), sponsored by DARPA is mathematically modeling blast wave interactions with the human body to help design body armor that protects users against Primary Blast Injuries (PBIs). Some soft body armor has been found to actually increase damage to the lungs from the blast force.

• Field Evaluation of the Sizing and Tariff of the U.S. Marine Corps Interceptor Body Armor. J. David Brantley. U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command Soldier Systems Center. Natick MA. July 2000.
  Hundreds of Marines were measured and fit for Interceptor vests. Sizing distribution and issues are discussed, as well as their relationship to previous data.

Miscellaneous

• Physiological Effects of Wearing Heavy Body Armor on Male Soldiers. D. Majumdar D, KK Srivastava, SS Purkayastha, G Pichan, and W Selvamurthy. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics. Vol.20. No.2. Pgs. 155-161. (1997). Available on Science Direct.
  Records physiological variables of users wearing 9 Kg and 11 kg vests doing different tasks in India.

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