Published: March 05, 2007 12:54 pm            

Body armor being built for soldiers

More than 20,000 U.S. soldiers have been injured in Afghanistan and Iraq; approximately 12,000 of those injuries have been to arms and legs. Because of these statistics, the secretary of the Navy issued a call for research to combat the problem.

Cue Dr. Donna Branson, Oklahoma State University Regents Professor and director of the Institute of Protective Apparel Research and Technology in the department of design, housing and merchandising.

Branson and her team have been able to produce two pieces of body armor that are being used overseas. There are 5,000 of the Phase IV armor and 900 of the Phase V armor being used by the U.S. Marine Corps, Branson said.

“We began in May 2004 and shipped our third generation prototypes December 2004 for military testing. Eight months is a very short time frame and we are proud that we were able to design, build, test, redesign, and rebuild the prototypes this quickly,” said Branson.

“I believe that we were able to do it because everyone involved in the project was totally committed to the project and willing to work long, hard hours to help reduce our soldiers’ serious limb injuries from IEDs.”

Branson will give a lecture about the collaborative research completed by OSU, FSTechnology, LLC and the Naval and Army Research Laboratories on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. in room 102 of the Advanced Research Technology Center. A reception will precede the presentation, which will include a soldier to demonstrate the armor and other researchers involved, at 3 p.m.

The lecture is hosted by the OSU Regents Professors as part of a lecture series to share research that is being conducted by OSU faculty.

“Critically important research is being conducted at OSU by numerous faculty, yet often the OSU and Stillwater communities know nothing or very little about this work,” Branson said. “We hope that this lecture series will improve that situation.”

However, the research is far from over. “We have also designed a first generation load-bearing ballistic vest that is still being tested,” Branson said.

        

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