In kinetic situations, mobility and survivability are two sides of the same coin. Luckily, with lightweight armor systems, you don’t have to choose one side over the other.
That’s something many US military and government agencies are well aware of. In recent decades, these authorities have focused on increasing protection levels while simultaneously reducing the weight of armor systems for military service personnel in high-risk environments. Reducing weight, improving ergonomics, and, most importantly, increasing survivability have been – and will continue to be – key in the procurement of next-generation ballistic armor solutions.
Dyneema®: A revolution in lightweight helmet solutions
In studying the effects of weight on US troops, the Center for a New American Security found that heavy loads reduce cognitive and tactical performance and mobility in soldiers, which in turn negatively affects their situational awareness and performance.
As a result, enabling weight reduction in personal armor systems – particularly ballistic helmets – has become a key goal for material and body armor manufacturers. In just a short period of time, some impressive material technology advances have led to great strides being made in reducing weight while enhancing protection levels for wearers.
One such game-changing development was the introduction of Dyneema® Force Multiplier Technology – and specifically Dyneema® HB311. With this product grade, ballistic helmets can weigh 25% less than helmets made with competitive materials. Fundamentally, this innovation improves performance against various ballistic threats in helmet applications while also easing the burden on the wearer, reducing ergonomic stress, boosting situational awareness, and allowing for weight tradeoffs in areas with less ergonomic impact.
Investing in success
The trend toward high-performing, lightweight helmets will no doubt continue to drive innovation in research and manufacturing – after all, state-of-the-art helmets demand longer development times and require new and more difficult processing techniques. With this in mind, it’s important for material technologies and processing capabilities to keep up with the pace of change.
At Dyneema®, we’re uniquely positioned to address these needs thanks to our product innovation, material performance knowledge, and processing know-how. We invest not only in material development but also in investigating the impact of processing techniques on performance, thereby ensuring we stay at the cuttingedge of protective helmet technology.
What does this all mean for our value chain? It’s simple. Dyneema®’s innovation and application development team is on hand to support body armor manufacturers who want to push technology forward. We help shorten development times, with no shortcuts. And we improve ballistic helmet performance – helping protect those who protect us against today’s advanced and emerging threats.
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Interested in learning more about Dyneema® for your project or end-use application? Reach out to our team of experts today.
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