Enhancement Data In Term Of Material Selection And Design Consideration For Bulletproof Vest

Abstract

Bulletproof vest is also known as ballistic vest and it is used to provide ballistic protection to the body of law enforcement and military personnel from injury through bullet impact, fragments, stab attacks and other treats. In this project, shear thickening fluid/ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene, STF/UHMWPE fabrics composites were prepared in order to design a low cost and lightweight bulletproof vest with high mechanical properties (impact energy and stab resistance). There are 2 categories that are prepared (UHMWPE with and without STF) and each category has 10 different numbers of layers. For the “UHMWPE with STF”, 10 of them were impregnated with shear thickening fluid that prepared by sonochemical method by mixing dry silica nanopowders, polyethylene glycol and ethanol. The effects of number of layers of UHMWPE fabrics and STF/UHMWPE fabrics on the impact properties for both UHMWPE without STF and UHMWPE with STF fabrics were investigated by using drop tower impact testing. Results from this study showed, absorption of impact energy is increased with increase in the number of penetrated witness papers. Besides, it is also indicated that the impact energy absorbed by witness paper/s is increased when the number of UHMWPE fabric and STF/UHMWPE layers are increased. The comparison between 2 categories is discussed. The result showed that STF/UHMWPE fabrics have better performance than UHMWPE fabrics in term of impact energy absorption, stab resistance and number of fabrics layers.