U.Va. engineering students designing new body armor

By: Times-Dispatch Staff | Times-Dispatch
Published: February 17, 2009

CHARLOTTESVILLE U.Va. student Jeff O'Dell, an Army soldier who has been at war, knows the value of body armor.

"You live in that armor," the second-year biomedicaland mechanical-engineering student said. "You wear it like a T-shirt."

Now O'Dell, with a team of three other University of Virginia second-year engineering students, is working on a new type of body armor that could save the lives of American soldiers.

The new armor design will be lighter, more flexible and better able to withstand armor-piercing bullets than the 30-pound vest now used by the Army.

The initial design the young team formulated is so promising that experts from the Army will visit the H.P. White Lab in Maryland this month to observe how the armor holds up.

White's is an independent small-arms and ammunition research, development and ballistics testing laboratory.

For proprietary reasons, the students don't want to get into the specifics of how the armor works, though the invention in part is a new configuration of ceramic plates. The students also don't want photographs taken of the armor.

O'Dell said the problem with current armor worn by soldiers is that one shot from an armor-piercing bullet will create cracks in the ceramic material that makes up the vest. That leaves the soldier vulnerable to the next shot.

The U.Va.-designed vest should withstand possibly as many as 32 rounds of armor-piercing bullets per plate, said O'Dell, who at 29 is much older than his teammates. Armor vests usually have four plates -- one each for the front, back and sides.

"We're trying to contain those cracks," O'Dell said.

The new armor also will "deflect" less when struck by the steel-core bullets used to penetrate armor. That's important because too much deflection -- where the ceramic material is actually deformed inward by the force of the bullet -- can also kill a soldier.

Besides O'Dell, who grew up in Martinsville, the team consists of Dan Abebayehu, Ann Bailey and Adam Rogers.

Bailey, 19 and from Elkton, said, "I really learned a lot from this project, how engineers can come together to solve a problem and actually save lives."

Added Abebayehu, 19, who is from Alexandria: "The greatest reward for this is being able to show appreciation for our soldiers and try to equip them with the best equipment possible."

Rogers, who called it "an incredible experience," said they're finishing their second round of test samples and look forward to helping save soldiers' lives.

Biomedical-engineering students at U.Va. begin to attack real-world problems in the first semester of their second year. O'Dell and his team got to choose how to improve body armor as their classroom assignment.

O'Dell, who as a fire-support specialist served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now a sergeant with the Tennessee National Guard. He expects to deploy again to Afghanistan this year.

He possibly could be wearing armor he and his classmates designed. "It could not only save American lives," he said, "but my own life, too."

Contact Carlos Santos at (434) 295-9542 or csantos@timesdispatch.com.