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Surface Modification to Aramid and UHMWPE Fabrics to Increase Inter-yarn Friction for Improved Ballistic Performance

Chu, Yanyan

[Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2015.

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Abstract

Manufacturing more reliable and lighter body armour using the fabrics with highperformance fibres is the development trend of ballistic protection device. However,increasing the reliability of the body armour normally needs to increase weight. Thisinvestigation aims to develop better ballistic performance of body armour withoutaffecting weight. Inter-yarn friction in quasi-static state in fabrics constructed for bodyarmour is one of the important factors affecting ballistic performance. This researchfocuses on increasing inter-yarn friction by surface modification methods for superiorballistic protection of woven fabrics. Finite element (FE) simulation is employed toanalyse the effects of inter-yarn friction on ballistic performance theoretically. BothAPPCVD and sol-gel methods are used to achieve the purpose of practically increasinginter-yarn friction. Ballistic experiments are conducted to evaluate ballistic performanceof the fabrics with different levels of inter-yarn friction after treatments.Through both numerical and experimental investigation, it is confirmed that increasinginter-yarn friction in quasi-static state can improve ballistic performance of fabrics. Theoverall energy absorption will be increased with the increase of inter-yarn frictionbecause higher inter-yarn friction generates higher resistance to the projectile, makesfabric structure more stable, leads to more involvement of the secondary yarns andincreases both KE and FDE percentages. Moreover, higher levels of inter-yarn frictionwill flatten the trauma and make the fabric response more globalised owing to the lesstransverse deflection ability. However, over high inter-yarn friction is counterproductivebecause of stress concentration on the primary yarns.For the surface modification, one of the aramid yarns, Twaron® yarn and one of theUHMWPE yarns, Dyneema® yarn, and their fabric products are used as the substrates.SEM analyses are used to characterise the morphology changes. Both FTIR and EDXanalyses are conducted to identify the coated substance. Based on coefficients of friction test and yarn pull-out test, the APPCVD treatment and sol-gel treatment have been proved as two effective ways to increase inter-yarn friction and at the same time the tensile properties of the yarns and the weight are almost unaffected.Moreover, sol-gel treatment has been established as an effective method for improvingballistic performance without significant weight increase, where the energy absorption ofthe Dyneema® fabric can be increased by 6.74%, and the trauma depth can be decreased by16.99% for Twaron® fabric panel and by10.73% for Dyneema® fabric panel.