A team of mechanical engineers at Brigham Young University have built an improved shield for law enforcement that is capable of stopping handgun bullets. The concept of this shield was based from origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, and the prototype is much lighter than that of conventional police shields.
Source: YouTube
According to Larry Howell, professor of mechanical engineering at BYU, “We worked with a federal special agent to understand what their needs were, as well as SWAT teams, police officers and law enforcement, and found that the current solutions are often too heavy and not as portable as they would like. We wanted to create something that was compact, portable, lightweight and worked really well to protect them.”
Currently, the shields that are used by the police are usually made of solid steel and it can weigh to around 100 pounds. These conventional shields are also large enough to protect only one person, and can be very difficult to transport. The BYU engineers wanted to improve this system, so they developed a lighter and more manageable shield by using the principles of origami. The key difference between the conventional shield and this newly developed one is that this newly developed shield weighs only 55 pounds, and is very portable because of its folding mechanism.
Here is the video:
Source: YouTube, Brigham Young University
The origami pattern that this shield was based on is called the Yoshimura crease pattern, wherein it uses a number of triangular creases to create a foldable object. The new shield that uses this pattern can collapse to the size of a small suitcase, but is capable of expanding to a size that can cover up to three people.
Source:NewsJS
The shield is made up of twelve layers of kevlar with an aluminum core. The resulting prototype is a very lightweight yet durable design. Even if it weighs only around 55 pounds, this shield can stop bullets that are fired from most handguns. The team has tested it with 9mm, .357 Magnum, and .44 Magnum pistols.
According to Howell, “Those are significant handguns with power. We suspected that something as large as a .44 Magnum would actually tip it over, but that didn’t happen. The barrier is very stable, even with large bullets hitting it.”
The researchers constructed the shield prototypes to be extremely sturdy and protective, while making sure to maintain the flexible qualities of Kevlar fabric so it can still be folded compactly. Kevlar fabric is sensitive to sunlight and water, and is subject to fraying and abrasion, so the team made sure to reinforce it against the environment.
The federal agents that worked with the engineering team has expressed great interest in the engineering team’s creation. The researchers hope to fully develop this innovation in the near future so it can help save officers’ lives.
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