How are kevlar helmets made
When these delicate snowflake shapes are pressed together, they'll form a piece of headgear that's comfortable enough to wear to war and tough enough to take a bullet.
The Special Operations Delta helmet breaks down into two parts, the attachments and the body.
The helmet is made from a synthetic plastic material called aramid. sheets of the material are rolled out onto a cutting table and stacked on top of one another. It's the layering that makes the helmet anti ballistic or bulletproof. fibers are so tightly woven that the projectile gets caught in the web and expends a lot of energy trying to push through more layers means more protection.
Patterns are laid over the aramid sheets and cut with a bandsaw. The operator wears a chainmail glove to make sure he only slices through the material. The aramid is cut and piled into snowflake shaped stacks. The stacks are rolled over to the press. Individual sheets are laid onto a mold in an overlapping pattern. Steam heats and 150 tons of pressure fuse the layers together to form the helmet shell. Paint won't stick to aramid. So once the shell is complete, an additional paintable layer is pressed on to form the outer surface. The helmet is hand trimmed to remove the excess material. holes are drilled for chin straps and rails for mounting optical gear. One helmet from each batch is tested by simulating a worst case scenario. A bullet to the head. A helmet is positioned five meters from an automated nine millimeter rifle. The rifle is loaded and fired. Bullet travels at almost 440 meters a second directly into the helmet. And while it does damage to the outer shell, it doesn't pierce it, which means in combat. It just saved a soldier's life.
Once the batch has passed the ballistics test, the helmets are trimmed and a rubber edging is applied. Now the helmets are ready for painting. Once the paint is dry, the helmet gets a camouflage coating using a process called hydrographics. The five color print comes on a film which is cut to size and placed on the water surface. A chemical spray both dissolves the film and activates a bonding agent. The helmet has dipped into the VAT through the print, which floats on the surface like an oil smoke. The pattern sticks to the helmet than the top coat seals in the design.
The inside of the helmet is fitted with an adjustable harness neck pad and shock absorber inserts.
The outside of the helmet is kitted with rails to melt tactical equipment like lights, gas mask, communication equipment, and night vision.
