U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Search Publications by: Amanda L. Forster (Fed)

Search Title, Abstract, Conference, Citation, Keyword or Author
Displaying 1 - 25 of 127

Effect of Aging on Unidirectional Composite Laminate Polyethylene for Body Armor

March 8, 2023
Author(s)
Amy Engelbrecht-Wiggans, Ajay Krishnamurthy, Amanda L. Forster
Ballistic-resistant body armor has increasingly been using flexible unidirectional (UD) composite laminates that comprise multiple layers in the armor construction. Each UD layer contains high-performance fibers held in place using very low modulus binder

Analysis of Strain Correction Procedures for Single Fiber Tensile Testing

December 29, 2022
Author(s)
Amy Engelbrecht-Wiggans, Amanda L. Forster
Accurate strain measurement for single fibers is critical for many engineering applications. Typically, the crosshead displacement is used to calculate strain when performing mechanical testing, however there are complicating factors: slack in the specimen

Relative effects of polymer composition and sample preparation on glass dynamics

August 17, 2022
Author(s)
Christopher Soles, Amanda L. Forster, Katherine Evans, Madhusudan (Madhu) Tyagi, Robert M. Elder, Timothy Sirk, Joseph Dennis, Kanae Ito, Osama Yamamuro, Hiroshi Akiba
Modern design of common adhesives, composites and polymeric parts makes use of polymer glasses that are stiff enough to maintain their shape under a high stress while still maintaining a ductile behavior after the yield point. Typically, material

Effects of Thermal Aging on Molar Mass of Ultra-High Molar Mass Polyethylene Fibers

March 24, 2022
Author(s)
Zois Tsinas, Sara Orski, Viviana Bentley, Lorelis Gonzalez-Lopez, Mohamad Al-Sheikhly, Amanda L. Forster
Ultra-high molar mass polyethylene (UHMMPE) is commonly used for ballistic-resistant body armor applications due to the superior strength of the fibers fabricated from this material combined with its low density. However, polymeric materials are

Temperature-insensitive silicone composites as ballistic witness materials: the impact of water content on the thermophysical properties

July 28, 2021
Author(s)
Ran Tao, Fan Zhang, Huong Giang Nguyen, Philip Bernstein, Amanda L. Forster, Randy Mrozek, Aaron M. Forster
In this work, different formulations of a room-temperature silicone composite backing material (SCBM) composed of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), fumed silica and corn starch were investigated using different characterization techniques, i.e., differential

Comparison of theoretical and experimental failure distributions for twisted yarns

September 14, 2020
Author(s)
Amy E. Engelbrecht-Wiggans, Amanda L. Forster
Both untwisted and twisted bundles of fibers and wires can be found in a myriad of applications, from ballistic body armor to suspension bridge cables. Predicting the bulk bundle failure distribution based on single fiber or wire tests is of interest as

Linking Theory to Practice: Predicting Ballistic Performance from Mechanical Properties of Aged Body Armor

August 24, 2020
Author(s)
Amanda L. Forster, Dennis D. Leber, Amy E. Engelbrecht-Wiggans, Virginie A. Landais, Allen Chang, Emilien J. Guigues, Guillaume Messin, Michael A. Riley
It has long been a goal of the body armor testing community to establish an individualized, scientific-based protocol for predicting end-of-life of fielded body armor ballistic performance. A major obstacle in achieving this goal is that the test methods

Effects of temperature and humidity on high-strength p-aramid fibers used in body armor

April 14, 2020
Author(s)
Amy E. Engelbrecht-Wiggans, Faraz A. Burni, Emilien Guigues, Shefei Jiang, Vivian Yu, Thang Huynh, Zois Tsinas, Deborah Jacobs, Amanda L. Forster
To improve the reliability and design of body armor, it is imperative to understand the failure modes and the degradation rates of the materials used in armor. Despite the best efforts of manufacturers, some vulnerability of armor materials to aging due to