Researchers from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst studied the way graphene absorbs kinetic energy and discovered that it might be extremely efficient in preventing bullet penetration.
The researchers constructed a miniature ballistics test, using a laser pulse to superheat gold filaments until they vaporised, acting like gunpowder to fire a micron-size glass bullet into 10-100 sheets of graphene at 3000 meters per second.
The scientists found that graphene sheets dissipate the kinetic energy by stretching into a cone shape at the bullet's impact point, then cracking outward radially. Despite those cracks (which are a weakness of single-layer graphene), it still performed twice as well as Kevlar and endured 10 times the kinetic energy that steel can. The cracking problem should be abated by using multiple layers of graphene or using it in a composite structure.
Graphene's lightness and strength have been thought to be potentially fit for making body armours for some time, but the results of this research not only confirm this idea but donate a better understanding of the processes that make it so.
inconsistency with reference
speed of a M16 rifle bullet is: 3,100 feet per second = 944,88 meters per second.
article states: "fire a micron-size glass bullet into 10 to 100 sheets of graphene at 3000 meters per second – about one-third of the speed of a bullet fired from an M16 rifle."
a m16 bullet does not travel at 9000 meters per second. article should say: "about 3 times the speed of a bullet .... "