ENIG, in collaboration with SRI International (Menlo Park, CA), has been selected and awarded by the U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center (NSRDEC) to develop a modeling methodology with predictive and inferential capabilities, specifically to address the challenges of designing body armor for the warfighter. These challenges include the ability to resist realistic multiple impacts from burst fire events.
“ENIG’s objective is to provide an end-to-end modeling capability, grounded in the statistics of realistic impacts from small-arms fire, which would address the final materials state of a body armor system,” according to company President, Eric N. Enig.
“Our Material Sciences Group is tasked with the goal of predicting armor performance after an initial impact, as well as the location of possible subsequent impacts, and then updating our materials model with these subsequent impacts”, he added.
Initially, as a proof-of-concept, ENIG will focus on the statistics of realistic burst fire impacts, examine the effect of multiple impacts from a Type IV, armor-piercing rifle threat on a ESAPI consisting of a boron carbide ceramic with a ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene backing. Impact validation studies will be performed to evaluate the ballistic resistance of this system, and methodologies developed here will be used to evaluate a variety of small-arms systems, under a range of conditions.
Citing a Letter of Support from BAE Systems (Phoenix, AZ), Enig noted that the end goal of this program is to provide rigorous probabilistic risk assessments for body armor performance, which would enable better decision-making concerning armor design, materials selection, and requirements generation.
(For more information, contact media@enig.com.)