Egyptian University student develops light-weight bullet proof vests

With a military insurgency still waging
in Egypt, a young university student has
ventured into a mission to try keep the
security forces safe.

At the British University in Cairo,
Remon Ashraf is developing a new type
of body armour that is both lightweight
and relatively cheap to produce.
He said he was personally touched
when he saw security forces were
under frequent attacks from Islamist
militias.
He says the changing nature of
warfare means security forces need
new types of equipment to protect
them.
“The idea came to me after seeing the
frequent attacks on police officers and
security personnel. The attacks are no
longer the same…providing the soldiers
with safety no longer requires
traditional heavy armour,” Ashraf
explained.
In traditional body armour, steel,
ceramic or metallic plates are used in
layers to provide maximum protection.
By using a combination of chemical
additives and adhesives on polyamide
fabrics, Ashraf says he has reduced the
weight of traditional body armour to
less then half of its current weight.
He says that with minimal layering, his
new product can provide protection
from a 9mm pistol bullet travelling at a
few hundred miles per second.
“What I thought of was to create a
composite material, we will use this
material and enhance it using chemical
additives which will provide us with
bulletproof armor which weighs less,
costs less and is thinner than current
models.”
Ashraf and his team hope to develop
the product further, so that it will
ultimately provide protection against
automatic machine gun fire and rifles.
Ashraf further said that the vests have
been created using a method that will
guarantee very high efficiency without
using too many layers, which would
otherwise increase the weight and cost
to the manufacturer or those who use
them.