Ballistic Impact Response of Foamed Glass Aggregate

Abstract: Traditional sandbags have been used by the United States military and its allies to fortify structures against ballistic impacts for centuries. Although this method is cost-effective, the amount of manual labor required to create and transport sandbags to create protective structures takes away hundreds of valuable hours from the mission of a military unit. A recently developed, lightweight foamed-glass aggregate is now being used in many geotechnical engineering applications across Europe and has recently been used for similar applications in the United States. As a solution to the excessive man-hours required to build sandbag fortifications, this study will evaluate the potential for foamed-glass aggregate material to absorb ballistic impacts and analyze its capability to be considered as an alternative to sandbags when creating temporary military fortifications.  The study will analyze the ballistic impact response to two different standard NATO rounds, the 9mm x19mm NATO, and the 5.56x45mm NATO.  The study will also explore various gradations of the aggregate to determine how they affect the ballistic response.  This study may also serve as the basis for future studies for potential military applications of foamed-glass aggregate in protective gear and structures as well as creating a baseline database for the current ballistic protection sandbag for future material comparison and analysis.