Preparation of body armour material of Kevlar fabric treated with colloidal silica nanocomposite

Abstract

To safeguard bodies of soldiers better, including their necks and joints, a novel armour material was exploited using nanocomposite. Compared with traditional armour materials, this new material possessed superior barrier property and more comfortable characteristics. The new armour material was made of Kevlar cloth and shear thickening fluid (STF). Colloidal silica particles were first synthesised via the Stöber synthesis method and then they were used to prepare a suspension with solvent of polyethylene glycol 200. At last, Kevlar cloth was treated with the suspension and the resultant was named as STF–Kevlar nanocomposite. In this process, the particle sizes were characterised with scanning electron microscopy. The rheological properties were measured with a Physica MCR301 stress controlled rheometer. The results showed that the silica particles could be determined to be monodispersed spherical particles. The suspension, named the shear thickening fluid, had shear thickening characteristic. The property of multilayer STF–Kevlar nanocomposite targets was compared to that of the neat Kevlar cloth and the results indicated that the STF–Kevlar nanocomposite had an improvement in barrier property and was more flexible and comfortable. The mechanism that could improve the barrier property of STF–Kevlar was briefly explained.