Conceptual Mold Design for Multi-curved Natural Fiber Reinforced Composite Body Armor Panel

The development of lightweight and inexpensive body armor products is under on-going attention by both manufacturers and users. In general most body armor panels are made either from ceramic or composite materials using various manufacturing techniques such as manual layup, compression moulding, etc. However, for natural based reinforced composite which the reinforcement material is in powder or particulate form, such technique have to be specifically modified to achieve workability in the actual fabrication process. This paper present a systematic design approach on fabricating a natural based particulate composite mold using compression molding method. A Total Design Method was utilized in generating the concepts of multi-curved body armor molds with different ejection system. The significant criteria in the mold concept design selection were found to be the fabrication process, maintenance and cost. Further analysis such as machining time and fatigue life estimation were done to evaluate the workability of the selected concept design.