Flexible armour with energy absorbing half-spheres or hemispherically-shaped bodies

An armour component for use against a bullet, said component comprising:

• at least two pairs of layers of flexible material,
• at least two layers of hard half sphere beads tightly confined one layer of beads each between one of said pair of layers of flexible material to form envelopes
• the half sphere beads in each layer of hard half sphere beads being thereby contained in a separate flat envelope formed by said one pair of layers of flexible material,
• the layers of hard half-sphere beads in the envelopes being void of any inter-bead matrix and being held in close packed lattice patterns by means drawing together said pair of layers of flexible material forming each envelope,
• said hard half-sphere beads on impact of a bullet being free to rotate and vibrate so as to encounter repeated impacts with each other and said bullet to thereby provide an action causing dissipation of bullet energy,
• said envelopes being fastened together with juxtaposed layers of flexible material of separate envelopes held in face-to-face engaging relationship and the half-sphere beads of two adjacent bead layers internesting in the inter-bead spaces of each other.

A body armour structure comprising in combination,

• 1) an outer flexible component for flattening and trapping a bullet and thereby converting a penetration threat of a high velocity, low diameter bullet into a bruising impact threat of a moderate residual impact energy,
• said flexible outer component including inner and outer layers of flexible cloth-like material, at least said inner layer being of high impact-resistant material,
• two internested layers of hard half-spherical bodies, and stitching means for sandwiching said internested layers of half-spherical bodies between said layers of flexible cloth-like material, said half-spherical bodies on impact of said outer component by a bullet, being substantially free to rotate and to vibrate during collision so that said half-spherical bodies encounter unimpeded repeated impact with each other and said bullet to thereby provide an action causing distortion of said bullet and dissipation of energy, and
• 2) a separate inner backing flexible component for spreading the impact of said bullet striking and being flattened and trapped by said outer component.

A body armour structure comprising:

• an outer component for flattening and trapping a bullet,
• said outer component including at least two pairs of layers of flexible high impact-resistant cloth material and at least two layers of hard half-spherical beads, each layer of beads being respectively enveloped and tightly confined between one of said pairs of layers of flexible material, and
• said hard half-spherical beads confined between said pairs of layers of material of said outer component having substantially void interstices therebetween and on impact of the bullet with said outer component, being free to rotate and vibrate so as to encounter unimpeded repeated impacts with each other and said bullet to thereby provide an action causing distortion of said bullet and dissipation of energy,
• a separate inner backing component for spreading the impact of the bullet striking the outer component,
• said inner component including at least two outer layers of flexible material and at least one layer of compressible material confined between the outer layers thereof.

An armour component for use against a bullet, comprising:

• inner and outer layers of flexible material,
• at least the inner layer of flexible material being of high impact-resistant material,
• at least two juxtaposed internested layers of hard half-spherical beads confined between said two layers of flexible material,
• the half-spherical beads in one layer of hard half-spherical beads being disposed in most compact relation with the half-spherical beads of an adjacent layer of hard half-spherical beads whereby the half-spherical beads of adjacent layers internest in the inter-bead spaces of each other, said hard half-spherical beads being substantially free to vibrate during collision of said bullet with said armour component so that said beads of said layers of hard half-spherical beads encounter repeated impact with each other and said bullet to thereby provide an action causing distortion of said bullet and dissipation of bullet energy, and
• stitching means for holding said hard half-spherical beads tightly in said relation, the volume occupied by the layers of half-spherical beads being substantially void of all other material.