No abstract

This publication details the four major phases of analytical development work, coupled with several additional side studies, undertaken by the Office of Law Enforcement Standards in writing the Flexible Armor Conditioning Protocol in NIJ Standard-0101.06. This protocol partially fulfills a requirement to develop a revised performance standard for body armor to address a number of concerns, one of which was the ability of the armor to withstand environmental and wear conditions that an armor might see over its lifetime. This document details how the protocol was shortened from 9 weeks in the first phase of development to 10 days, as it appears in the current version of the standard. All major classes of ballistic materials were tested in the protocol development. The conditions selected are found to be quite detrimental to armors of a design that previously had problems in the field, but are not detrimental to armors of known good design. It is important to note that the protocol does not represent an exact period of time in the field, but efforts to correlate the protocol to a period of time in the field are the subject of future research.