Properties of Kevlar fabric composites reinforced by STF composed of monodisperse polystyrene microspheres

Abstract

Shear thickening fluid (STF) composed of monodisperse polystyrene microspheres (m-PS-m) was prepared, and soft armor composites was constructed with Kevlar fabric reinforced by this STF in this work. Both the knife and the spike stab resistance performance of this soft composite are investigated and discovered to improve significantly over the neat Kevlar fabric (NKF), and the puncture resistance of the spike is dramatically superior to the cut resistance of the knife. 8 layers of STF-impregnated Kevlar fabric (STKF) will not be punctured under the highest impact energy while 10 sheets of NKF is impaled easily even under the lowest striking energy in experiments. The tensile strength of this soft composite is increased by more than 55% compared to NKF. The highest pull-out force for single yarn in STKF is nearly 6 times that of NKF. The highest pull-out force of single yarn and tensile strength for STKF are greatly improved to make it meet more requirements of different situations. More importantly, the excellent stab resistant and burst strength performance of STKF indicate that it has broad application prospects in the field of soft body armor.