Exploring the Importance of Ballistic Armour Testing
With contentious political environments and evolving world conflicts offering a rather unfortunate front-row seat to the realities of volatile situations, the importance of ensuring ballistic armour is able to stand up to field use is essential. From military efforts to policing, private protection, and more, ballistic armour plays an integral role in saving lives and allowing for effective personnel engagement in dangerous environments. Rigorous testing done by trusted teams like Biokinetics helps to ensure optimal performance and reduced risk during field operations, keeping everyone safe when it matters most.
Below we’ll take a closer look at the importance of adequately testing ballistic armour, as well as the benefits of partnering with a trusted team like Biokinetics. Read on to learn more!
Ensuring Performance and Protection
The primary objective of ballistic armour (also referred to as bulletproof vests or body armour) is to provide effective protection against projectiles and other ballistic threats. Such protective equipment is typically deployed in highly dangerous scenarios, where the threat of bodily harm and the potential for a fatality without sufficient protection is significant. Riots, police work, military purposes and other such high-risk environments make use of ballistic armour to protect personnel. In order for the armour to perform as required in specific scenarios, testing is essential. Ballistic armour testing assesses a unit’s ability to resist penetration, dissipate energy, and identify any other parameters that may serve as a limiting factor to adequate protection.
Furthermore, testing serves as a valuable form of quality assurance and helps to ensure that any design or manufacturing flaws that may be uncovered during testing can be addressed before going to market.
Performance Optimization
Modern warfare and weaponry present ever-evolving challenges to ballistic protection measures. Testing is vital to keeping armour wearers safe today but also plays a key role in helping to develop growing understandings of new methods that may better serve the purpose of protection and help to create new products that can withstand threats and give the wearer a competitive edge and peace of mind when it matters most.
Reliability and Consistency:
Consistency is crucial in ballistic armour performance; every unit must perform as expected, every time. Testing ensures that each unit of armour adheres to the desired performance standards and delivers consistent protection across the board. To garner as much information as possible, each unit undergoes standardized testing designed to simulate real-life scenarios and potential threats that may be encountered by armour wearers. By subjecting units to proven test methods, manufacturers are able to present valid evidence that their materials perform as needed and that each unit is as reliable as possible.
In addition to consistency and reliability, armour testing helps to create a standard of trust and accountability among manufacturers and their end users. Given the extremely dangerous occupations that rely upon ballistic armour, this trust is paramount, and all necessary certifications must be obtained to ensure full compliance with all relevant standards.
Protection for End-Users:
Finally, where ballistic armour is deployed, the threat of serious bodily harm is real. In such applications, the margin for error is exceptionally low, and end users must be able to trust that their unit will perform as intended without any hindrance or additional risk. Ballistic armour testing, as with all forms of testing conducted by Biokinetics, is rooted in the science of safety, and a “passing grade” on such products is about far more than simply getting a stamp of approval from regulators.
At Biokinetics, we recognize the importance of having clear and transparent results that your team knows they can trust when they put their lives on the line. For over 45 years, we’ve proudly partnered with clients across Canada and North America to offer extensive testing and assessment services for ballistics armour testing, blunt force trauma testing, sports research, and more. Our team of industry-leading experts provides comprehensive results and transparent recommendations you can depend on when it matters most.
Contact Biokinetics today to learn more!