Tissue simulant response at projectile impact on flexible fabric armour systems

Behind Armour Blunt Trauma is a phenomenon which has been studied extensively for rigid personal protective armour systems. These systems used in e.g. bullet proof vests manage to defeat high velocity small arms projectiles. Tissue simulants are used to study behind armour effects. At high velocity projectile impact wave phenomena will occur in tissue simulant placed immediately behind and in contact with the armour. These pressure waves are of high intensity. Flexible fabric body armour systems are used in fragment protective vests are also capable to defeat low velocity bullets. For those systems similar wave phenomena occur in tissue simulant occur at projectile impact though with less intensity and of a different nature. Impact experiments with 9 mm low velocity projectiles on flexible fabric armour systems have been conducted. Numerical simulations of wave phenomena in tissue simulant (Sylgard) have been performed with elastic wave modelling. Results have been compared the observed wave phenomena.