The Use of Laminates of Commercially Available Fabrics for Anti-Stab Body-Armor

Abstract

Modern personal protective armor has been generally based on the Kevlar fabrics, with the main goal to offer defense against bullets. In addition to the high cost and poor processability, Kevlar has the disadvantage of limited stab-proofing capability. On the other hand, a large number of crimes involving deadly injures represent knife attacks. Our goal in this work was to investigate composites based on traditional commercially available fabrics of linen and silk, using different adhesives-polymers for forming laminates. The silk composites also contained different amounts of in-woven polyester. Three different water-based adhesives of polyurethane, urea formaldehyde and polyvinyl alcohol were considered. It was found, that besides the strength of the fabrics themselves, the adhesives polymers played a crucial role in the obtained performance of the laminates. The laminates were characterized in their mechanical properties, as well as with scanning electron microscopy and FTIR spectroscopy.

Stab-Resistant Polymers—Recent Developments in Materials and Structures

“…Khuyen et al avoided technical fibers and investigated the stab-resistance of composites with linen and silk plain weave fabrics in water-based PU, urea formaldehyde (UF) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) matrices [ 63 ]. The highest tensile strength was found for linen/UF; manual (and thus highly subjective) stabbing tests were performed with an undefined blade, where 20 layers of hard silk/UF, resulting in a thickness of 7.9 mm, showed sufficient results.…”

Preparation of a TPU-Based Flexible Stab-Resistant Composite Membrane Filled with SiO2 and SBR Nanoparticles

“…15 Many scholars also considered the potential application of TPU in stab-resistant material. 16 Khuyen et al 17 used three different adhesives, polyurethane (PU), urea formaldehyde (UF) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), to form fabric laminates. The results indicate that the presence of all three adhesives can have a positive effect on the tensile strength, hardness, and bonding strength of the material.…”

The Behaviour of Stratified Fabrics of Aramid Fibres under Stabbing Conditions

“…Research has also been reported on vests with fluids that change their viscosity under impact, consuming a substantial part of the impact energy [14,[21][22][23]. However, these solutions cannot currently be mass-produced, and researchers' interest is equally focused on high-performance fibres, usually organised in fabrics [24][25][26][27][28]. For stab protection, polymeric fibres are used [29], as well as carbon fibres [30] and metallic fibres [31], sometimes in bold combinations [32], with natural [33] but…”