Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Strawderman, Lesley

Committee Member

Babski-Reeves, Kari

Committee Member

Carruth, Daniel

Date of Degree

12-9-2011

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Industrial Engineering

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Abstract

Body armor designs that limit the range-of-motion required for vital law enforcement tasks, such as shooting may be dangerous. Therefore, a posture based biomechanical analysis was performed to determine if upper body joint angles can be used to assess the effects of armor designs on assumed shooting. Participants (n=8) completed a battery of simulated duty tasks for three armor configurations (no armor, concealable, and tactical armor) while motion capture was used to compute included joint angles of the upper extremity and neck. In general, joint angles were impacted by armor configuration, and law enforcement experience (measured in years) significantly impacted their shooting posture. It was also found that the types of tasks performed interacted with shooting stance. This research is a first step at developing a method to analyze body armor designs and their impact on wearers, so that mobility may not need to be sacrificed for additional protective coverage.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/19115

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