Testing of Soft Body Armor

How do we ensure that the softbody armor we buy is proven effective and tested already? Are we assured the 100% guarantee that this body armor will work? If yes, how and why? Let us read on to know more about the National Institute of Justice’s standard on testing bullet proof body armor or bullet proof testing.

The testing done by the National Institute of Justice or the NIJ is the body armor ballistic testing. This is conducted to determine the resistance to penetration and the ballistic limit of body armor test samples. The objective of resistance to penetration or what they always call as Vo testing is to fire projectiles at a constant velocity to demonstrate that the armor sample provide specified protection against required threats. In layman’s term, this test determines at what velocity the bullet will have a zero percent chance of penetrating a given piece of armor.

If you ask about the penetration, here is the detailed description. A complete penetration occurs when the threat projectile or bullets, fragment of that projectile, or a fragment of the body armor material is imbedded or passes into the clay backing material (the clay is a substitute for a war fighter’s body mass).

Another testing done by the NIJ is the ballistic limit or V50 testing. This test is conducted to determine the velocity at which a complete penetration or incomplete penetration of the body armor is equally likely to occur. The V50 is determined by shooting the piece of armor several times with the same type of threat, across a range of velocities.

There is still other tests set-up done by both the National Institute of Justice and Department of Defense like for example, checking if the soft body armor is still working under extreme weather conditions such as dew, water and sun.