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This study aims ultimately to quantify the force needed to penetrate human tissue. The results will reduce the subjectivity of expert opinion in stabbing incidents. They will also aid clinicians in assessing the severity of injury and help prevent the unnecessary deaths which can occur when this is not fully appreciated. Tensile tests were performed to identify suitable skin simulants with synthetic chamois and pigskin as candidate materials. Quasi-static penetration experiments were also performed in which a knife blade penetrated a skin simulant target. Pigskin was found to be much stronger than chamois under tensile load yet the puncture resistance was almost identical for the two materials.

Multifunctional composites which can fulfil more than one role within a system have attracted considerable interest. This work focusses on structural supercapacitors which simultaneously carry mechanical load whilst storing/delivering electrical energy.Critical mechanical properties (in-plane shear and in-plane compression performance) of two monofunctional and four multifunctional materials were characterised, which gave an insight into the relationships between these properties, the microstructures and 2 fracture processes. The reinforcements included baseline T300 fabric, which was then either grafted or sized with carbon nanotubes, whilst the baseline matrix was MTM57, which was blended with ionic liquid and lithium salt (two concentrations) to imbue multifunctionality. The resulting composites exhibited a high degree of matrix heterogeneity, with the ionic liquid phase preferentially forming at the fibres, resulting in poor matrix dominated properties. However, fibre dominated properties were not depressed. Thus it was demonstrated that these materials can now offer weight savings over conventional monofunctional systems when under modest loading.

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