Injury Evaluation Techniques for Non-Lethal Kinetic Energy Munitions

Numerous types of nonpenetrating kinetic energy (KE) munitions have been developed and deployed throughout both the military and law-enforcement communities. The ability to evaluate the injury potential associated with this class of munitions has presented itself as a novel problem for the scientific community. Although several evaluation methods have been employed, currently, there is no widely accepted method for evaluating injury levels resulting from blunt impact derived from non-lethal projectiles. This paper briefly reviews two existing experimental techniques in addition to introducing a third. Data obtained from each of these procedures were collected for similar impacts and are offered for comparison.