Hazards addressed include debris from centrifuge accidents and from catastrophic failure of high-speed flywheels. Shield designs varied from high-strength steel chambers to transparent plastics. In the image at left, the system detected a 9-mm bullet after it was fired from a gun and then deployed a fabric armor to intercept the threat. In the time sequence of high-speed video pictures, the ballistics bag is being deployed after the radar detected the bullet. The horizontal grid lines are on a background board that enables a determination of the bag deployment speed.
Fabrics play an important role in today's military body armor.
Different fabrics have been tested to learn more about how multi-layer woven fabrics undergo large deformation. This information is being incorporated into an analytical model that describes the slowing and stopping of the projectile by the armor. The model predicts which material variables are the most important for improved ballistic performance and quantifies these gains. This knowledge will assist in the correct focus for advanced body armor configurations that will reduce the total armor weight necessary to stop a bullet. During certain launches of the space shuttle, thermal protection tiles on the bottom of the shuttle were damaged by impacts from fragments of insulating foam material that broke away from the external liquid fuel tank.