Quasi-static puncture resistance of unidirectional coated fabric

High strength nonwoven fabric in the form of unidirectional structure are being used in ballistic protection applications due to their light weight and flexibility. In this study, natural rubber latex (NRL) was used as a coating material on unidirectional fabrics. It was found that the mechanical properties of the NRL coated unidirectional fabrics can be improved by adding fillers in the NRL compounding. Multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) dispersion in several concentrations of 3 wt%, 5 wt% and 7 wt% were added into the NRL. The effects of filler loading of the MWCNTs in NRL were investigated under quasi-static penetration resistance test. In general, it was shown that the forces needed to penetrate the NRL coated fabric increases with higher content of filler loading and were higher in comparison with uncoated fabric. The NRL coated unidirectional fabrics with 7 wt% MWCNTs gave about 44% higher penetration resistance in comparisons with uncoated fabric. Several modes of fabric failure were observed after the quasi-static penetration resistance such as yarn stretching, yarn breakages as well as peeling off of NRL layer.