Lightweight Integrally Armored Floor (LIAF) Ballistic Testing

As part of the Lightweight Integrally Armored Floor agreement between the Aviation Applied Technology Directorate and United Technologies Research Center, ballistic testing was conducted on six armored floor system test specimens. The purpose of this ballistic testing was twofold: to evaluate the performance of test specimen configurations against the 7.62x39 mm PS Ball projectile, and to provide data for improved ballistic modeling capability. The general configuration for each of the six tested armored floor test specimens consists of a strike face, a layer of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, and a mini-core sandwich structure which serves as the walking surface of the floor system. Four of the six specimens failed to stop the projectiles; however, two of the six were able to stop the projectiles. Those two specimens were subjected to additional shots at higher velocity after demonstrating initial stopping capability.