Can you imagine body armor that weighs just a third of what is issued now.

Air Force cadet Hayley Weir had an idea that turned out to be a game changer. "It was just the concept of going out there and stopping a bullet with something that we had made in a chemistry lab."

The 21-year-old Weir approached Air Force Academy Assistant Professor Ryan Burke with the idea. He was skeptical.

"I said, 'I'm not really sure this is going to work, the body armor industry is a billion-plus-dollar industry," he noted.

Weir's idea was to combine anti-ballistic fabric with what's known as a shear thickening fluid to create a less heavy material to use in body armor. She demonstrated the principle to Burke by combining water and cornstarch in a container and asking the professor to jam his finger into the paste-like goo.

"I jam my finger right into this bowl, and I almost broke my finger! Hayley's laughing because I've got this finger that I'm shaking and I'm saying, 'You know, that's pretty impressive stuff.'"

Convinced, Ryan worked with Weir for several months in a small lab at the Air Force Adacemy in Colorado Springs. They were helped and advised by Dr. Jeff Owens, Senior Research Chemist at the Air Force Civil Engineer Center at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.

They tried combining several different ingredients to come up with the exact formula for the shear thickening fluid, and the correct way to layer it with ballistic fibers.

"The pieces are not new," Weir explains, "everything that we've used in there has been researched (before) in some capacity for ballistics protection."

They tested their combinations on the firing range, failing time and again, until one day their quarter-inch thick design repeatedly stopped a round fired from a 9mm handgun.

Weir and Ryan's excitement was tempered by the range safety officer who pulled his .44 Magnum and told them bluntly, "This will fail."

Ryan says, "We loaded it in and it stopped it. And it stopped it a second time, and then a third time."

They realized they had hit on something special, that could potentially lighten the average 26-pound body armor kit worn by servicemen in the field by as much as two thirds.

"This is something that our competition doesn't have right now," Weir explained. "And with this advantage our soldiers, if they wear this body armor, will be able to move faster, run farther, jump higher."

Body armor for the military and first responders may not be the only thing that can be improved by the new fabric. It could possibly be used to reduce or replace the thick metal plates that protect military aircraft, tanks and other vehicles.

"And there's some significant gravity and weight behind that," Ryan said. "And what it could mean for people like my friends who are still active duty in the military, that are going downrange, serving overseas."

breakthrough
By Kelly David Burke, Alicia Acuna Published June 02, 2017 Fox News

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Air Force Academy cadet creates bulletproof substance
Air Force cadet Hayley Weir had an idea that turned out to be a game changer. "It was just the concept of going out there and stopping a bullet with something that we had made in a chemistry lab."

The 21-year-old Weir approached Air Force Academy Assistant Professor Ryan Burke with the idea. He was skeptical.

"I said, 'I'm not really sure this is going to work, the body armor industry is a billion-plus-dollar industry," he noted.

Weir's idea was to combine anti-ballistic fabric with what's known as a shear thickening fluid to create a less heavy material to use in body armor. She demonstrated the principle to Burke by combining water and cornstarch in a container and asking the professor to jam his finger into the paste-like goo.

"I jam my finger right into this bowl, and I almost broke my finger! Hayley's laughing because I've got this finger that I'm shaking and I'm saying, 'You know, that's pretty impressive stuff.'"

Convinced, Ryan worked with Weir for several months in a small lab at the Air Force Adacemy in Colorado Springs. They were helped and advised by Dr. Jeff Owens, Senior Research Chemist at the Air Force Civil Engineer Center at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.

They tried combining several different ingredients to come up with the exact formula for the shear thickening fluid, and the correct way to layer it with ballistic fibers.

"The pieces are not new," Weir explains, "everything that we've used in there has been researched (before) in some capacity for ballistics protection."

They tested their combinations on the firing range, failing time and again, until one day their quarter-inch thick design repeatedly stopped a round fired from a 9mm handgun.

Weir and Ryan's excitement was tempered by the range safety officer who pulled his .44 Magnum and told them bluntly, "This will fail."

Ryan says, "We loaded it in and it stopped it. And it stopped it a second time, and then a third time."

They realized they had hit on something special, that could potentially lighten the average 26-pound body armor kit worn by servicemen in the field by as much as two thirds.

"This is something that our competition doesn't have right now," Weir explained. "And with this advantage our soldiers, if they wear this body armor, will be able to move faster, run farther, jump higher."

Body armor for the military and first responders may not be the only thing that can be improved by the new fabric. It could possibly be used to reduce or replace the thick metal plates that protect military aircraft, tanks and other vehicles.

"And there's some significant gravity and weight behind that," Ryan said. "And what it could mean for people like my friends who are still active duty in the military, that are going downrange, serving overseas."

A patent for the as yet unnamed design is pending, and if money is ultimately made, the Air Force will share the profits with Weir, Ryan and Owens.

"It doesn't feel like it's that great of an achievement," Weir muses, "just because it's been something that we've enjoyed doing."

The Air Force believes it is definitely a great achievement. They are providing the newly graduated 2d Lt Weir with a full-ride scholarship to Clemson University, where she will earn her Master of Materials Science and Engineering, before returning to the Air Force to continue her work.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017...of-breakthrough.html

Sounds real promising!

Next time I drive into Memphis, Imma wet my shirt and sprinkle on some cornstarch. I'm bulletproof, chumps!

Non Newtonian fluid.

3D0 armor is that way and there's something else that looks like foam used in the same way.

Motorcyclists use this presently.

Hopefully this will work out and we'll have new lighter and more effective armor.

I just avoid Pb injections altogether.

"50% of the time, it works every time".

They only tested with pistol calibers? No rifle rounds? The kevlar inserts that are in our modern body armor are already light-weight. It's the rifle plates that are the heavy part.

quote:

It's the rifle plates that are the heavy part.

And serialized. Go ahead, turn one in cracked. Correct serial number? Broken? Got a damaged gear statement? Fucking supply brother, supply...LOL.

There was a guy a while back who made some kind of dragon skin armor. It was insane on what it would stop. Somehow it never got NIJ certification. Without NIJ cert. you will never be able to buy it with grant money, there for no police or govt. contracts.

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
There was a guy a while back who made some kind of dragon skin armor. It was insane on what it would stop. Somehow it never got NIJ certification. Without NIJ cert. you will never be able to buy it with grant money, there for no police or govt. contracts.

Pinnacle Armor's Dragon Skin did have NIJ certification for a period of about 8 months from December 2006 to August 2007, at which time its NIJ certification was revoked. The company attempted to apply for recertification, but went bankrupt before they were able to obtain NIJ certification again.

(There's a lot of scuttlebutt out there about Dragon Skin, with folks on one side alleging that the company was screwed over by various government agencies throughout the process, and folks on the other side firing back with allegations that the armor failed in testing and that the company made fraudulent claims about the armor.)

Another great use for the non-Newtonian tech. is with trauma pads under the armor. You could take a thinner armor that stops the threat, but fails with excess back-face deformation and up the rating that way saving thickness and weight.