Can boron carbide shatter bullets in body armor?

[chemisthypnos]

Does anyone know how this works? I hypothesize that the reason that the bullet shatters is that boron carbide is much harder than the copper of the bullet. Does anyone think that this may be made into a conventional armor design as some people are saying or is boron carbide too expensive for use in this application?

Link: http://www.slate.com/articles/video...rmor_can_shatter_bullet_on_contact_video.html

 

[phinds]

Does anyone know how this works? I hypothesize that the reason that the bullet shatters is that boron carbide is much harder than the copper of the bullet. Does anyone think that this may be made into a conventional armor design as some people are saying or is boron carbide too expensive for use in this application?

The cost of the components could be utterly trivial compared to the cost of the fabrication of the composite. I have no idea if that's the case but my point is that you are not looking at the big picture.

 

[jim hardy]

Boron carbide body armor has been around for decades. Carborundum made it in their Niagara Falls plant when i visited there in the 1960's.
Back then they blew it into fiber with a steam jet then made it into cloth using secondhand textile manufacturing equipment.

The foam is new to me but it seems a logical progression.

See what these folks have to say ?
http://technical-ceramics.3mdeutschland.de/en/products/3m-ballistic-ceramics.html

 

[chemisthypnos]

Fascinating. I think that I may have found why it may not be used in a number of applications. It seems to be good for only the first hit, but subsequent hits will cause the material to fracture. https://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?article=3166

 

[CWatters]

I think you can laminate up Boron fibre much the same as Carbon, Aramid or glass fibre.

 

[TeethWhitener]

Boron fibre

You can certainly do this with boron nitride. Boron carbide seems less likely, but you could probably impregnate carbon fiber with boron carbide (whether that would get you the result you want is a different story).