Preliminary Investigation of the Potential Health Risks of Nonform-Fitting Body Armor with a Focus on Female Warfighters

Conclusions from this study included the identification of a possible critical point for warfighter exposure to shock with air gaps between their armor and torso. This point was at a 0.5-cm air gap thickness regardless of material density, as this thickness was the most hazardous air gap size. Air gaps exceeding this thickness significantly reduced exposure, though they cannot be directly implemented into armor designs because of the increased ballistic injury risk. As the pressure exposure to the torso was shown to vary with air gap thickness, and consequently fit of the body armor, knowing the pressure externally on the body armor may not correlate to internal injuries equally for all wearers. Future work directions should investigate complex geometry armor plates to fully understand air gap injury risk effects for the wearer.