An Investigation into the Blast Effects on Civilian Personnel Protective Armour

Abstract

With the ever increasing threat of terrorist attacks, understanding the blast effects on the human body is becoming increasingly important. Typically terrorism based events often occur around non-military, high profile, large population areas to achieve the greatest number of causalities. As such, the blast loading effects produced from such event are not limited to military personnel, but also civilians. One area that is often overlooked is the blast effects on law enforcement personnel wearing body armour. This work explores the influence and loading profiles that the typical police body armour has upon the blast loading experienced by the wearer.