Why isn’t Titanium Used in Body Armor?

Dear Armored Republic,

Why do you not use titanium in the manufacture of body armor since it is widely used in so much other military equipment for its strength and it is lighter than steel? By the way, I claim intellectual property rights should you start using titanium in your armor.

Thank you,

Tommy, 5th Grade, Woodward Ave. Elementary School

Dear Tommy,

Thank you for your question. There are three reasons titanium is not used in body armor, it is less dense than ballistic steel, it is brittle (tensile strength) as compared to ballistic steel, and it is cost-prohibitive.

Tensile strength is a general indicator when assessing the ability of a material to survive the impact of bullets and ballistic steels at Brinell ratings of 450 and above are denser and can also absorb the impact of multiple rounds as compared to the lower-density, and therefore more brittle titanium. Additionally, steel is flexible enough to take the hit, or multiple hits without suffering stress-fractures and the increased density provides better dissipation of the rounds energies than an equivalent titanium plate; transferred energies is an important component in body armor design to defeat incoming rounds while protecting the wearer.

You may have seen a video from Demolition Ranch testing a 1″ thick high-grade titanium block and it ultimately stopping a .50 BMG at fairly close distances (no significant decay in muzzle velocity), however the transferred energies from such a hit would result in catastrophic soft tissue damage to the wearer.  There is also a video of testing different thinner titanium plates which fail to stop rounds that the equivalent steel body armor not only defeats, buts mitigates the transferred energy better. 

As to cost you should note that the use of titanium is usually in very large (read: expensive) military systems due to the material’s cost and the complicated methods required to mill/process that material. This would make titanium body armor prohibitively expensive to own and at AR500 Armor one of our underlying goal is to keep quality body armor obtainable by the everyman (or woman).

Sincerely,

The Armored Republic

P.S. Getting your hopes on those intellectual property rights will be a good lesson on the realities of life outside of a classroom.