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Polyethylene Bulletproof Vests Better Than Kevlar
teflonscout writes "When I think of bulletproof vests, the first word that comes to mind is Kevlar. Wired is running a story on Dynema SB61, a bulletproof material that is made of polyethylene. It is a higher grade of the plastic found in Tupperware. The story also mentions the recall of Second Chance bulletproof vests that were made from Zylon, a material that degraded slowly when exposed to moisture. At least one police officer was injured when a bullet penetrated his Zylon vest. Polyethylene is impervious to moisture. The first vests made from this new material are 5mm thick and can stop a 9mm bullet traveling at 1777 feet per second, which is slightly better than other top of the line vests."
Can't wait to see The Box O' Truth give it a try.
the density of Kevlar is 1.44, while polyethylene is 66% as dense at around 0.94 to 0.96, will actually float in water.
Read the whole article.
Exerpts:
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
This is one of those cases where allegory is truly misleading. The article makes the comparison to shopping bags and tupperware in order to emphasize the "everyday" nature of the material. The truth is that they have similar basic components, but the exact composition and processing differences cause one material to be good at resisting bullets and another at storing food (or selling at parties.) Unlike Tupperware, Dyneema vests are composed of woven and laminated fabric.
Dyneema is actually a trade name for a thread derived from Ultra High Molecular Weight polyethylene. The intrinsic strength of the material comes from the ability to increase the length of the polyethylene chain to extreme lengths. Since the structure of UHMW derives its strength mostly from the intermolecular Van-der Waals forces, the longer the polythethylene chains get, the stronger the forces holding the material together become. When the processing of the polythylene allows the length of the chains to become uniform, then you can engineer it into useful forms, such as a fiber which eventually be formed into fabric, then laminated and put on your chest.
Of course, being UHMW, Dyneema has a weakness: Its melting point is about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, or about the temperature of a hot light bulb. Which means that while your body heat might not harm the vest, carelessness in storage might.
Independent tests do not support the army's conclusions. Since there is already some question about the validity of the army's tests (e.g. the designer of the vest that "won" in the army's test says that dragon skin is actually better, the person who conducted the army tests left to work for a dragon skin competitor, etc.) I don't think just repeating the army's conclusions (or quoting the Washington Compost as doing so) really proves anything.
--MarkusQ
The low melting point is also not good in combat situations.
Its highly recommended to wear *cotton* and not nylon clothes, for example, because cotton won't melt to your skin if you survive an IED attack.
-- My Sig is a P228.
I'm from the small town in Michigan in which second chance was founded, and I know the entire history of the "incident"
The officer in that shooting was shot 6 or 7 times. *ONE* bullet penetrated the Zylon, and it was on the periphery of the vest. The edges of *ANY* vest are vulnerable and not as strong as center-mass.
Second chance has 960+ confirmed saves with their body armor.
What they've done to the second chance business as a result is, on the whole, a travesty. They were/are one of the few american manufacturers, and they did nothing wrong at all.