Test Methodologies for Personal Protective Equipment Against Anti- Personnel Mine Blast (Methodologies d'essais pour le materiel de protection prsonnel contre le souffle produit par les mines antipersonnel)

摘要

In 2001, the NATO RTO established a new Task Group, HFM-089/TG-024, to review how various countries test Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) against Anti-Personnel (AP) mines, and to recommend action for future testing. This was done in response to mounting evidence that anti-personnel mines pose a significant threat to soldiers, which has prompted the development of new PPE in several countries. Hundreds of different AP mine types exist but the majority fall into only two categories: Fragmentation and Blast mines. These category names reflect the primary injury mechanism associated with each. The accident data available to TG-024 demonstrated that the majority of fragmentation mine accidents result in ballistic wounds. Blast mines result in two patterns of wounds depending on whether a mine explodes under the lower extremity or in front of a soldier that is conducting mine clearance tasks. These three scenarious result in distinct patterns of injury, each scenario requiring that the PPE be subjected to a different test that is appropriate for the threat conditions.