Protective body armors, providing protection against stab threats, have long been in a focus of substantial interest. Lightweight fabric for flexible body armors that satisfy the customized fit, comfort, and protection should be considered. Sharp impact experiments were conducted on single and multilayer fabrics of Kevlar 29 , Vectran, and Polyester triaxial woven fabrics and compared with polyester woven and knitted fabrics. The experimental results evaluate the energy absorption of the different triaxial woven fabrics for stab resistance. An index was developed to evaluate the capability of fibers to absorb the impact energy which indicated that high fiber tenacity and Young's modulus and low density lead to high rate of punching resistance force. The present work indicates that Vectran triaxial weave fabrics propose to improve the impact performance when used in developing multilayer fabrics for designing lightweight soft body armor with enhanced stab performance adding flexibility and comfort.
Single jersey knitted fabrics are generally used to make underwear and outerwear such as T-shirts. Knit fabric can more easily deform or stretch by compressing or elongating the individual stitches that form the fabric. Cotton yarns, which are not elastomeric, do not have the ability of recovery to rearrange the stitches. As a consequence, single-knit fabrics may have permanent deformation. To improve the recovery performance of circular single-knit fabrics, it is now a common practice to knit a small amount of spandex fiber or yarn with companion cotton yarn. In this study the physical, dimensional, and mechanical properties of back plaited cotton/spandex single jersey knitted fabrics were investigated and the results are compared with knitted fabrics made from 100% cotton and the effect of spandex percentage was also studied. It was found that as the loop length increases, the wales density was not affected and specific fabric hand and extension increased, but bursting strength and fabric recovery decreased. The presence of Lycra in single jersey knitted fabric increases of course density, fabric thickness, and knitted fabric recovery, while fabric width, fabric porosity, and extension were decreased.
In several applications, the industrial and protective fabrics might be subjected to punching by the rigid sharp spikes. Fabric resistance to the penetration of the puncher at a constant rate was studied. The analysis of the factors influencing the resistance of the fabric and an explanation of the puncture mechanism were generated. Punching force-displacement curves were obtained and four noticeable fabric failure modes were observed. A special setup was designed so that the fabric sample can be subjected to the biaxial stresses during the puncture tests. This paper studies the puncture behaviors of the plain, twill 1/3, and twill 2/2 woven fabric designs. It was found that the increase in the number of fabric layers from one to three and the number of picks/cm from 17.6 to 27.2 would elevate the punching resistance and the punching energy by 354% and 333%, respectively, with the insignificant change in the values of specific punching force and energy. Plain weave design proved to have higher values than twill design. A high correlation was observed between fabric tensile strength, fabric Young’s modulus, fabric failure energy and its punching force and punching energy.
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