Buoyant Ballistic Composite Structure With Void-Forming Binder
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing soft body armor is heavy, bulky, and often has neutral or negative buoyancy, limiting user mobility and comfort, while conventional buoyant solutions add bulk and do not address weight and mobility concerns.
Innovation Solution
A ballistic resistant composite material is fabricated using dry processing techniques with partially coated fibers and tapes, featuring discontinuous binder patches and polymer particles, creating empty spaces for enhanced buoyancy and reducing the need for bulky flotation components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional buoyant inserts (foam pads, flotation bladders) are added to body armor, then garment buoyancy is improved, but substantial bulk is added reducing user comfort
Solution Approach 1:
The invention merges the buoyancy function with the ballistic protective plating itself by creating a composite structure where buoyant material is integrated into the plate construction. This eliminates the need for separate buoyant inserts while maintaining both protective and buoyant functions in a single unified component.
Solution Approach 2:
The composite plating uses locally varied material properties by combining dense ballistic-resistant materials in specific regions with buoyant materials in other regions. This allows different zones of the same plate to serve different functions - protection where needed and buoyancy where beneficial - without adding overall bulk.
2Weight of moving object
If armor plates are made thinner and smaller to reduce weight, then user mobility is improved, but protective coverage is sacrificed
Solution Approach 1:
The invention employs composite materials that combine lightweight high-strength fibers with buoyant materials. This creates plates that are thinner and lighter than conventional solid plates while maintaining or enhancing protective coverage through the synergistic properties of the composite structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The armor system is segmented into multiple thin composite layers rather than relying on single thick plates. This layered composite structure provides equivalent or superior protection to thicker plates while reducing overall weight and increasing flexibility for user mobility.
3Reliability
If buoyant foam pads are affixed to interior of vest sections, then positive buoyancy is achieved, but the solution only addresses garment buoyancy and does not address weight and mobility concerns
Solution Approach 1:
The composite armor plates serve multiple functions simultaneously: they provide ballistic protection, contribute to overall system weight reduction through lightweight materials, and provide buoyancy. This multi-functional design eliminates the need for separate components for each function, achieving comprehensive performance improvement.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The material provides lightweight, flexible, and buoyant armor with enhanced anti-ballistic protection, allowing reduced plate size without compromising coverage, and counterbalancing negative buoyancy.
Implementation Method 1
the fibrous material has superior positive buoyancy in water... the fibrous material has inherent positive buoyancy in water that counterbalances the negative buoyancy of any incorporated plates
Data Source
AI summary
Ballistic resistant composite materials having high positive buoyancy in water are provided. More particularly, provided are foam-free, buoyant composite materials fabricated using dry processing techniques. The materials comprise fibrous plies that are partially coated with a particulate binder that is thermopressed to transform a portion of the binder into raised, discontinuous patches bonded to fiber/tape surfaces, while another portion of the particulate binder remains on the fibers/tapes as unmelted particles. The presence of the unmelted binder particles maintains empty spaces within the composite materials which increases the positive buoyancy of the composites in water.