The bulletproof 'air-conditioner' jacket was put to the test

Bulletproof vests are a type of personal armor that protects the wearer from small shotgun pistols and shotgun bullets, small debris from explosive materials such as grenades. The importance of bulletproof vests is something that doesn't need to be discussed, but soldiers and police are currently struggling to wrestle with thick armor, made from heavy-duty ceramic plates and Kevlar layers, capital five times harder than steel but limited to movement.

>>>America studies armor against bullets

Wearing such massive armor also does not create the comfort for soldiers to fight in high temperature areas like Afghanistan, where temperatures often rise to 50 degrees Celsius in the summer. Recently, a group of Swiss researchers have developed a new bulletproof armor - "air-conditioning" bulletproof armor .

Basically, this new bulletproof suit uses CoolPad technology, which is a version of Empa - which is designed for use in medicine. The coolpad is thin and contains flexible water pockets that are hidden in the top layer, thus cooling the surrounding air to cool down. In addition, to enhance performance, a small fan is also added to help circulate air through fabric pads.

The design of the shirt is also quite difficult. The first is the problem of how to maintain the structure of the shirt under the influence of external forces and still have to ensure the comfort of the wearer, while the mechanical forces are also proved to be too large compared to tolerance of cooling plates. This was solved by creating a barrier membrane, using diode laser welding technology. New cooling pads will be fixed to increase certainty, while increasing evaporation rate helps to cool quickly. Another problem encountered in the design process is that there is no existing fan of all sizes suitable for the shirt. However, the researchers quickly overcome by making their own suitable fan, each shirt will have up to 2 fans and they can operate continuously for 4 hours.

Compared to the current bulletproof vests, this new bulletproof vest is very light and has a high cooling capacity, which is convenient when on duty. It was also tested by Swiss police force and gave good results. Researchers hope that it will be possible to commercialize this pattern in the near future.

Reference: Gizmag