What are Trauma Pads and why are they important?
When rigid rifle plates or soft handgun body armor panels, are struck by a projectile, they transmit energy to the person wearing the armor, even after stopping the projectile. Trauma pads are designed to absorb impact energy and protect the wearer from back face deformation injuries.
This energy transmission is the result of the back face of the armor deforming during impact. According to the National Institute of Justice, NIJ, for body armor to pass a test for a particular round it must stop or capture the projectile, but also have a back-face deformation that is less than 44mm (approximately 1.7 inches). Imagine something protruding 1.7 inches into your body, you would survive, but exposed to quite a bit of blunt force injury. The purpose of the trauma pad is to reduce the amount of energy transmitted to the body and reduce the injury. The Trauma Pad does this in two ways, by absorbing some of the deformation and dispersing the energy over a larger area. Caliber Armor Next-Generation Trauma Pads
Our Trauma Pads are created by using a very high tech Non-Newtonian foam, called XDR® from the Rodgers Corporation. This is the same material used in the popular G-Form® pads that are sold for athletes to protect them from trauma. We chose to use this foam because, according to tests, it can repeatedly absorb up to 90% of intense impact energy by forming a protective shell. When subjected to an intense impact, it has the opposite characteristic as expected, it absorbs the impact, but instead of deforming completely, it becomes more rigid and this disperses the energy over a larger area. The more intense the impact is the more rigid it becomes. This unique property is what reduces blunt force trauma, something no ordinary foam can achieve!
Place a Caliber Armor Trauma Pad behind any of our CaliberX or Hard Body Armor panels to give you added protection against blunt force trauma. They are light as a feather and also add comfort during extended wear of your armor.
Stay in the fight with blunt force injury reducing Trauma Pads!