Classifications

• • F—MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; LIGHTING; HEATING; WEAPONS; BLASTING
  • F41—WEAPONS
  • F41H—ARMOUR; ARMOURED TURRETS; ARMOURED OR ARMED VEHICLES; MEANS OF ATTACK OR DEFENCE, e.g. CAMOUFLAGE, IN GENERAL
  • F41H5/00—Armour; Armour plates
  • F41H5/02—Plate construction
  • F41H5/04—Plate construction composed of more than one layer
  • F41H5/0471—Layered armour containing fibre- or fabric-reinforced layers
  • F41H5/0485—Layered armour containing fibre- or fabric-reinforced layers all the layers being only fibre- or fabric-reinforced layers
• • F—MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; LIGHTING; HEATING; WEAPONS; BLASTING
  • F41—WEAPONS
  • F41H—ARMOUR; ARMOURED TURRETS; ARMOURED OR ARMED VEHICLES; MEANS OF ATTACK OR DEFENCE, e.g. CAMOUFLAGE, IN GENERAL
  • F41H1/00—Personal protection gear
  • F41H1/02—Armoured or projectile- or missile-resistant garments; Composite protection fabrics
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A41—WEARING APPAREL
  • A41D—OUTERWEAR; PROTECTIVE GARMENTS; ACCESSORIES
  • A41D31/00—Materials specially adapted for outerwear
  • A41D31/04—Materials specially adapted for outerwear characterised by special function or use
  • A41D31/24—Resistant to mechanical stress, e.g. pierce-proof
  • A41D31/245—Resistant to mechanical stress, e.g. pierce-proof using layered materials

Definitions

• the invention pertains to protective garment having a torso portion and sleeves, for protecting humans against ballistic, stab and cut injuries.
• bullet resistant body protection mainly regards torso protection using sleeveless garment, i.e. bullet-resistant vests.
• the materials used for body protection are still too stiff to allow free movement of arms, thereby seriously hampering actions of the person wearing such garment, for which reason commercially available garments are invariably made without sleeves, or at the best have very short sleeves for protection of the shoulders.
• Body armor is used throughout the world today by the police as well as by military personnel against bullets, explosive fragments and direct fire. However, garment that is acceptable for military personnel may be less suitable for police.
• WO 2006/096981 a military and emergency service personnel garment has been described having a torso portion formed of flexible material and sleeves including one or more pockets for retaining a protective armor element to the sleeve.
• Each armor element comprises a flexible or rigid ballistic resistant material for protecting the limbs of a wearer against bullets and fragmentation from explosives.
• such garment does not protect the wearer from stab and cut injuries, and furthermore due to its weight, still seriously hampers the free movement of the arms.
• a protective sleeve for protecting a person's arm comprising various parts including a forearm section, an upper arm section, and a flexible connection between the forearm section and upper arm section.
• An elbow section is connected between the forearm and upper arm sections and covers the flexible connection.
• the sections of the protective sleeve each comprise a plurality of layers of cut resistant material enclosed within an outer covering. This garment protects the wearer from stabbing and cutting, but the production of such garment is complicated and expensive, and the wear comfort is low.
• the garment has sleeves, which effectively provides protection to the wearer with giving minimum restriction to his flexibility.
• a protective garment for protecting personnel comprising a torso portion and left and right arm sleeves extending from the torso portion, characterized in that the torso portion is made of a fabric material and a liner comprising a stack of 4 to 40 ballistic resistant fabric layers, and each sleeve is made of a single stab resistant fabric layer or a stack of 2 stab resistant fabric layers, and/or a single cut resistant fabric layer and/or a stack of 2 cut resistant fabric layers, or a single combined cut-stab resistant fabric layer or a stack of 2 combined cut-stab resistant fabric layers.
• the primary task of the protective material is absorbing ballistic energy in the shortest possible time and preventing sharp objects cutting and stabbing through the fabric. This is achieved with the present invention by using fabrics having high energy absorption, high tenacity, and high modulus of elasticity, which permits rapid dispersion of the deformation waves.
• These high modulus fabrics can be made of known materials such as aramid (such as Twaron®, Kevlar®, Artec®) and HD polyethylene (such as Dyneema® and Spectra®), or combinations thereof.
• the torso portion may contain 4 to 40 layers, but 15 to 36 layers are preferred.
• the ballistic fabrics as such are made according to known methods in the form of a weave, knitted fabric, unidirectional layer, or non-woven felt.
• the cut and stab resistant sleeves are preferably made of layers of HD polyethylene (such as Dyneema® and Spectra®), but other known cut and stab resistant materials can also be used. It is usually preferred to combine HD polyethylene with one or more other fibers such as nylon, polyester, cotton, glass, to improve the ability to stretch.
• the fabric layers can be woven, knitted or be non-woven such as a felt. These materials are commercially available, for instance at Fuchshuber, Germany, Jules-Tournier, France, VdS/Textile de Lignes, Belgium/France, and Aluart, Spain.
• the sleeves contain 1 to 2 stab resistant fabric layers, or 1 to 2 cut resistant fabric layers, or preferably both stab and cut resistant layers, or alternatively they contain 1 to 2 combined cut-stab resistant fabric layers. It is preferred not to use more than a total of two layers to maintain optimal flexibility of the sleeve portions. When a combined stab-cut resistant fabric is used a single layer already renders satisfactory protection.
• the stab resistant layer can be made of a relatively hard fabric, whereas the cut resistant layer can be made of a relatively soft fabric, which may be compared with felt-like material.
• the terms "relatively soft” and “relatively hard” relate to the flexibility of the fabric layers in relation to each other. It was found that the combination of relatively soft and relatively hard fabrics practically completely prevents stab and cut injuries.
• the torso portion, the sleeve portion, or both portions are provided with an inner layer at the inner side of the garment (at the side of the liner or fabric layers that is farthest removed from the fabric material).
• the inner layer improves the wear comfort substantially.
• the inner layer not necessarily is bullet or knife resistant itself, but can also be made of any other suitable material such as polyester, silk, cotton, linen and the like.
• the garment can be made in the form of a coat, overcoat, jacket, sweater, jersey, and the like.
• the fabric material at the outside of the garment can be made of any synthetic or natural material. It can be advantageously, although not required, be made from fabric material having ballistic, cut or stab resistant properties. Specially when worn as coat, overcoat, or jacket the garment does not closely fit to the body, as bullet resistant vests typically do, thereby leaving some air layer between the body of the wearer and the garment.
• the air layer can be as thick as a few centimeters. The air layer so created enhances the comfort of wearing and improves the thermoregulation. Further such air layer diminishes the trauma effect when hit by for instance a bullet.
• the garment is provided with an inlay.
• Such inlay is provided at the inside of the torso portion and contains the liner with ballistic layers. It is preferred that the inlay can easily be separated from the rest of the garment. This enables using the same inlay for different garments, for instance summer and winter garments, or using different inlays for the same garment, and also enables using the garment as a stab-cut protecting garment only (by removing the inlay containing the liner) or as a full protection garment by attaching the inlay to the fabric material of the garment. It also enables to replace the ballistic material if damaged or when it has lost some of its ballistic properties.
• the inlay can be secured to the rest of the garment, if so desired, by common fixing means such as snap fasteners, zippers, Velcro, and the like.
• the inlay can be made of any suitable material and is made in the form to fit in the rest of the garment. Fleece materials, cotton, linen, silk, polyester, Goretex®, and the like, or even stab, cut or ballistic resistant materials are particularly suitable as inlay material.
• the torso portion between the fabric material and the ballistic resistant fabric layers can be provided with one or more stab resistant, cut resistant, or combined cut-stab resistant layers.
• the garment is provided with pockets these may be reinforced by making them using extra fabric layers.
• a fleece inlay for a coat contains two portions.
• the first portion is the shoulder part up to the top of the breast. It consists of punched fabric. This allows automatic release of heat from down to up.
• the second portion is attached to the punched part and stretches to the hips.
• This portion contains double-sided Velcro, whereby the inside is the soft side of Velcro.
• the inlay can be attached to the torso portion of the garment by Velcro.
• a third portion is elastic cut and stab resistant sleeves. These sleeves are attached to the fabric material of the torso portion.
• the sleeves can be provided with zippers or Velcro to allow detachment from the torso portion.
• This coat does not need an inner layer since the soft side of the Velcro acts as inner layer.
• Ballistic front and back panels can be inserted in the double-sided Velcro parts of the inlay.
• the Velcro parts of the fleece inlay can be used to attach pockets, gun cases, and the like.
• Velcro can further be mounted on the shoulders to allow attachment to the outer coat (the fabric material).
• the outer coat (fabric material) can easily be attached and detached from the inlay.
• Ballistic materials for the ballistic liner can be selected from 4 to 40 layers (the specific numbers of layers that were used in test materials are given between brackets) of one or more of known ballistic materials such as: Dyneema® AXN NL2 - class 2 (22 layers) Dyneema® Dyneemflex EP - class 3a (36 layers) Dyneema® iX3.8 - class 3a (34 layers) Twaron® S6 Protection - class 3a (32 layers) Artec® R1 Protect - class 3a (30 layers)
• Stab and cut resistant materials include ALS®, (polyethylene/nylon/glass) Aluart, Spain having cut level 4 and 5.
• cut or stab resistant materials are 4500 Armalith®, TL 009 G, TL 019 G and TL 019 H, all obtainable from DSM Dyneema, the Netherlands, and Kevlar® (ex DuPont, USA) and Twaron® (ex Teijin Aramid, the Netherlands).

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Ceramic Engineering (AREA)
• Professional, Industrial, Or Sporting Protective Garments (AREA)

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Publications (1)

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Cited By (4)

Citations (6)

• 2008
  • 2008-12-18 EP EP08172168A patent/EP2199727A1/fr not_active Withdrawn

Patent Citations (7)

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