Detection of defects in ceramic faced armour
conference paper
To protect against high velocity AP rifle threats, ceramic plates are used as body armour. Nowadays mainly multi curved, monolithic plates are used, in order to better conform to the human torso. Ceramic is a brittle material and thus susceptible to cracking after a blunt impact or drop. These cracks have shown to decrease the ballistic performance of the plate. Therefore, regular inspections are necessary to ensure the plate is safe to use. Since the ceramic in the armour plate is covered, it is impossible to observe from the outside whether the ceramic is damaged or not. There are several non-destructive test methods to inspect the condition of the ceramic. X-ray imaging is commonly used and can reveal cracks and manufacturing defects. There are also techniques on the market that merely distinguish plates in good condition from defect ones. These are available as simple, portable systems, for use in the field. This paper gives an overview of different detection methods known to be available and their potential to identiff different types of defects. lt compares the results obtained by two different techniques on a set of plates.
TNO Identifier
1017961
Publisher
TNO
Source title
17th Personal Armour Systems Symposium (PASS 2025) - Personal Armour, Bruges, Belgium, 22-26 September 2025
Pages
361-370
Files
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