Acoustic techniques for the inspection of ballistic protective inserts in personnel armor

This paper presents the results from a study performed to demonstrate the feasibility of using Guided Wave AcoustoUltrasonics (GWAU) to assess the condition (as related to ballistic performance) of personnel armor Ballistic Protective Inserts (BPI). The BPI is manufactured with ceramic fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) composite technology. Experiments were performed on BPI damaged ballistically, by mishandling, and in the “as manufactured” condition. The data collected from these experiments were used to form manual and automated C-scan images. Both manual and automatic C-scans of the samples revealed clear differences between the damaged and undamaged samples. Also, RF signals were recorded from different locations on the samples damaged by mishandling, and a frequency analysis was preformed. The results from this analysis revealed a good correlation with the actual degree of damage in the samples.