4.

Mechanisms affecting ballistic material performances against impact

As we discussed earlier, for the last many decades different ballistic materials from felt to metal and composite were
used in different applications including armour systems. This has been even further extended on bioinspired
materials and its biomimetic conditions [119].

Even though steel was the most preferred materials in battlefield, however for the last few decades new and
innovative materials including fibres, composites, laminates and ceramics have been extensively exploited to
accomplish the requirement of different modern military and other operational, technology driven applications.
Consequently, textile material have been used as ballistic since World War II, as flak jacket for aircraft and now
widely used by military and police personnel [221].

Different studies revealed that the effectiveness of the ballistic performance of the materials against impact as a
whole depends on various parameters [103][104].This means that the responses of the ballistic materials cannot be
evaluated from individual fibre properties or other parameters, indeed, different factors combine to produce a
structural response [71].

Various researchers and scientists have investigated on those effects using different material along with various
mechanisms. Among the investigations, in general, the different parameters which influence the ballistic impact
performance includes material properties, fabric structure, projectile geometry and velocity, far field boundary
conditions, multiple plies and friction [30][222]. Fibre type [104], yarn properties [221][96] and its fabric unit area
weight has also showed a great effect on ballistic impact performances [78].

Other parameters like ballistic material areal density [114], dimension of target [103][223], target plies numbers [5]
[104], target ply layering sequence [110][224][104] and textile construction, such as woven/nonwoven and 2D/3D
fabrics has also played a vital effect on the final performance [103][225][8][226][227][73]. Besides, friction
between projectile–yarn, yarn–yarn and filament–filament [228][229][230][231], bullet speed and geometry [30]
[97][167][116][30][31][202][232], target frame size and clamping pressure [233] and shooting angle [234] has also
contributed an important role in the energy absorbing process during ballistic impact performances of different
materials upon ballistic impact. The following section will present different research works, which dealt and
discussed on different factors, which affect the final target ballistic performances against ballistic impact.

4.1 Ballistic textile material properties (textile and fibre-reinforced composites)

4.1.1 Effect of fabric structure characteristics
In general, the textile material ballistic impact performances are influenced by various parameters. Among th
various mechanisms, textile material properties such as fabric architecture, weave construction, weave and yarn
density, fabric thickness, fabric crimp and fabric types are some of the major factors. Studies using various fabrics
discussed the effect of those parameters not only in ballistic impact performance
[235][236][237][197][238] but also in their flexibility [239][240], mechanical properties, including tension wave
speed [241][242], tensile and tear strength [243][244][245][246][247].

The weaving architectures is one of the factors affecting the flexibility, durability, manufacturing processes, ballistic
impact resistance and energy absorption of single, multi-layer fabrics and its corresponding composites [73][248]
[202][249][104][250][251][177][190]. One of the study reported the influences of fabric construction in para-aramid
fibrous products with similar material and density on their ballistic behaviour at constant speed and deformation
energy test against different projectiles [248].

Different fabric construction namely, 1/1 plain, weave, twill weave, 2×2 basket, and satin constructions (Fig. 8)
were tested at the at the lower speed projectile and the result, revealed that, a 1/1 Plain weave construction shows
better performance against armour-piercing (AP) and Full metal Jacket Rifle Bullets (RB) than the other fabric
construction (Fig. 9). However, at higher speeds, 2×2 Basket fabric showed better ballistic resistance performance
compared to the plain and twill weave construction.

Another study with mesoscale numerical models were also investigated on the influence of woven architectures
toward the ballistic resistance of single and multilayer Twaron ® fabrics and its composites [190].The experimental
test performed only on the plain weave Twaron® fabric to capture the projectile's residual velocity, fabric
deformation, as well as failure patterns. Both the numerical and experimental result shows that weaving
architectures and fabric firmness are less influential on the overall ballistic protection of multi-ply systems compared
to the single-ply cases.

Similarly, the effect of fabric structure (plain weave, basket weave and knitted fabrics shown in (Fig. 10 (a)) against
ballistic resistances of composite textile material have numerically investigated using finite element analysis [250].
Considering all the structure with similar mass per unit area, knitted composite textile possessed the worst
performance compared to the others.

The impact-induced damage patterns between plain weave and knitted structure numerical results are also strongly
supported by the experimental study. The crack propagation consistence along the ‘course’ direction of the knitted
fabric was clearly observed in both experiment and numerical models as shown in Fig. 10 (c) (iii) and (d) (ii).
Whereas, 2/2 basket weave exhibited similar ballistic resistance compared to knitted fabrics and provided more
shearing and flexibility for fabrics compared to the rigidity of the plain weave.

A numerical modelling based study on the ballistic response of different woven fabrics was also supported by the
above investigation [251]. Among the different fabrics structure, namely plain, twill and satin, the plain-woven
fabric exhibits better energy absorption due to its maximum interlacing points to transmit stress to a larger fabric
area by involving more secondary yarns while energy dissipation as shown Fig. 11 (a). Besides, as illustrated in Fig.
11 (b), in a multi-ply ballistic system, regardless of the type of fabric structure, both fabric density and yarn crimp
has relation with the energy absorption capabilities.

Another comparative study involving both experimental and numerical approaches on ballistic performances of
different fabric architecture made of high strength fibres were investigated [177]. The comparisons based on the
depression depth and energy transferred to the backing as described in Fig. 12, showed that most of the analysed
fabrics provide a similar level of protection, however, multiaxial and plain woven fabrics revealed the best and the
least blunt trauma resistance respectively.

Besides, the experimental investigation on the ballistic performance of cross-laminated and woven aramid fabrics
based on energy dissipation and projectile arrest of the material [73] shows that the cross-ply laminated aramid
material gives better ballistic performance than woven fabrics with similar fibre material (Fig. 13). The capability to
dissipate the impact energy were found 17% and 5%, whereas the minimum number of layer to stop the projectile
are one and six for the cross-ply aramid laminates and woven aramid respectively.

The K-Flex UD nonwoven fabric panels has also shown 16% lighter and more flexible than the Twaron woven
fabrics while ballistic impact performances test of panels made of 100% woven (Twaron CT 710 type) and 100%
unidirectional nonwoven (K-Flex) para-aramid fabric panels (Kevlar 129 yarns) with various fabric ply numbers
according to NIJ standards [252]. Beside its light weight panel, K-Flex UD non-woven have also shows lower
trauma depth and higher trauma diameter values compared to Twaron woven fabric panels in dry state due to the
absence of crimp for better propagation of ballistic impact energy (Fig.14 (a) and (b)). In addition, using the
measured trauma depth and diameter, unidirectional fabric panels absorbed around 12.5–16.5% more energy, and
possess more deformation than woven fabric panels for the unit panel weight ((Fig. 14 (c) and (d))).

Based on series of standard ballistic test, the influence of fabric structure on ballistic performance of UHMWPE
composite laminate’s reinforced by three different kinds of fabrics (unidirectional (UD) prepreg, 2D plain-woven
(2D-P0) and 3D woven single-ply orthogonal (3D-S0)) were also studied [202]. The composite laminates with
unidirectional fabrics exhibit higher ballistic impact velocity and absorbed energy capacity compared to others. The
2D plain and single-ply 3D orthogonal woven fabric reinforced laminates have also shown localized damages with
little delamination as shown in Fig. 15. However, unidirectional composite faces plugging friction for the thin
laminate whereas, delamination, fibre tension and bulking in thick laminate were found the most occurring surface
damage.

Apart from fabric structure, pre-tensioning phenomena while woven fabric production has also an influence on the
ballistic performance of the materials. In order to understand its effect both on ballistic limit and in-plane force
variation of the woven fabric, ballistic impact test at normal and oblique were examined using a pre-defined
experimental setup as shown in Fig. 16. In this investigation, the ballistic fabric responses were affected by different
factors by which all are affected directly by the pre-tension and impact angle [253].

Moreover, while fabric production, apart from fabric construction, yarn gripping while producing narrow plain
woven fabrics has shown a great effect on the ballistic performances of the final material [254][114]. Based on the
ballistic impact experimental test on plain woven narrow fabrics with different widths revealed that narrower fabric
demonstrates better performance in lower impact energy [254]. This is due to the fact that better weft yarn gripping
effect of the selvages and less performance in higher impact energy due to insufficient and discontinuity of the
fabric material to dissipate the impact energy as compared to wider fabrics.

However, the broad novel fabric incorporating both yarn gripping and material continuity could also possess better
ballistic performances in terms of both back face deformation and projectile penetration. Even the panel
arrangement (cut and fold form) and (offset and stacked) of the narrow fabrics has also showed an effect on the
ballistic impact performances. Folded panels gives better ballistic performance than cut ones due to its good yarn
continuity and the offset panel did not perform well due to it lacked the material continuity for the impact to be
dissipated sideways and the projectile could also impact on gaps between two pieces.

Moreover, even though the ballistic performance of narrow fabrics is highly sensitive to fabric construction, in the
fully clamped condition, the energy absorption of strip and narrow fabrics were also found better than the wider
fabrics under ballistic impact due to yarn pull out in one direction moderating strains at the impact zone [114]. This
makes it possible to develop flexible full-width body armour panel by choosing and combining appropriate narrow
fabric with better performance and mounting frame than the standard fabric panels.

Besides, it was recommended for further insights for advancements of ballistic performance through optimizations
of width and weave of the fabrics. Weave types and weave density are also another influential fabric properties that
should be considered while ballistic impact resistance [255][256]. The effect of weave types on the ballistic
performance were studied experimentally using different fabrics made from aramid, ultrahigh molecular weight
polyethylene (UHMWP), and hybrid (aramid–ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene) [255].

Considering the combined projectile, yarn count and denier, the ballistic performances of fabrics made of UHMWP
and hybrid revealed strong independence on the weave types. Whereas fabrics made of aramid were found
insensitive with higher variation in the ballistic performance. A study also deals on the effect of weaving density
(loose and tight) plain weave layers made by manual use of unidirectional prepregs on the impact behaviour of
laminated woven E-glass epoxy composite under hemispherical impact nose with 12.7mm diameter [256], and the
result shows that weaving density and curing pressure plays a great role on the impact response and perforation
thresholds of woven composite.

For example, loose woven composites cured under low pressure showed higher perforation threshold and better
impact properties compared to other considered combinations. In the investigation, four woven layers each consists
of light and tight weave type having 100 x 100mm dimensions were well aligned, stacked together and cured under
low and high pressure. The thickness of the laminate and dry fabric panel while production and ballistic
performance tests of fabric panels and composites also plays a great role independently on the ballistic impact
behaviour including energy absorption and failure mechanisms on each dry fabric and its corresponding composites
[104][202][257][249][258]

s it is clearly shown in Fig. 18 (a), the perforation resistance and energy absorption capacity were significantly
improved by folding a fabric into multiple plies than the unfolded counterparts. The effect of the number of layers
on energy absorption efficiency was different among the tested fabrics due to the different inter-layer interactions
depending on fold patterns.

However, as shown in Fig. 18 (b), fabric folding seemed to have a negligible effect on the back-face deflections of
fabric specimens. On the experimental investigation of different aramid and ultra-high molecular weight
polyethylene (UHMWPE) compos A multi-ply panel made with various number of plain woven fabrics layers (made
of Spectra 1000 fibres) and fold pattern (unfold, accordion fold and roll fold ) were experimentally investigated for
its dynamic response by a spherical steel projectile impact at velocity range of 120 to 200 m/s as shown in Fig. 17
[258]. A ite laminates, the ballistic behaviour in terms of the ballistic limit velocity and energy absorption shows a
linear relationship with the pre-defined specimen thickness regardless of the fabric structure [104]. Due to the
existence of exerting high-energy bullets by the weaponry and ammunition, development of new and effective
material, which can resist to the ballistic impact, is mandatory.

To resist such kind of impact, besides using a high strength material; considerably thick material should be applied.
One of the studies tried to investigate the effect of thickness and to determine the minimum value to avoid
perforation while ballistic impact of aramid (Kevlar®) fabric laminate subjected to 7.62 MM Ammunition at a speed
of 800 m/s with standard procedure [257]. Based on the result, 96 layers (~50 mm) of aramid fabric thickness was
required to capture the high-speed bullet, which was much higher than the necessary thickness for multi-layered
armour to stop the same 7.62 mm bullet at the specified speeds.

Similarly, an extensive experimental study was also conducted to investigate the effects of panel thickness on the
ballistic performances of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) composite [249]. The test were
carried out on the composite having a thickness in a range of 9 to 100 mm against 12.7 mm and 20 mm calibre
fragment simulating projectiles (FSPs). The study clarifies the result both for the thin and thick composites while
ballistic test.

Moreover, the two nondimensional ratios (the geometry and density ratios) are other factors which greatly influence
and control the impact behaviour of woven laminate plate and multi-layered fibrous materials [259][102][260]
[261]. The effects of such parameter on the different ballistic behaviour on composite plates made from woven
laminates of E-glass fibres were studied and analyzed using nondimensional formulation of an analytical model at
different impact velocities.

Based on the formulation, linear proportions were found between both the nondimensional ratios and the ballistic
limit. Besides, similar results were also recorded for the contact time between projectile and plate. Regardless of
nondimensional ratio, the fibre failure, cone formation and fibre elastic deformation were the principal energy
absorbing mechanisms at no plate perforation, impact velocities over the ballistic limit and impact velocities close to
the ballistic limit respectively. The formulations were also verified by experimental data for plates up to 7.5 mm in
thickness [260].

Similar to the nondimensional ratio, the areal densities were also exhibited an influence on residual velocity, the
minimum energy and energy absorption and contact time between the plate and the projectile during the impact
event. Study on the highvelocity impact behaviours of monolithic laminates involving various areal densities varies
show that the perforation energy, perforation velocity and size of the damaged area varies based on the thickness of
the composites [262].

Moreover, the areal density of the composite is linearly proportional to the diameter and areas of the damaged zone
for the upper and lower faces of the composite. The ballistic performances of the composites were also depends on
the applications of thermoplastic matrix on different types of fabric and composite laminates having similar areal
densities. According to the investigations on ballistic performance of plain layered aramid fabric and multi-layer
Kevlar aramid fabric composite laminate, the thermoplastic matrix revealed a significant and positive effect on
composite laminated ballistic performance than plain layered aramid fabric impact specimens.

This is due to the fact that, in the matrix composite laminated facilitates enables different energy absorbing
mechanisms as compared plain layered aramid fabric [263]. Similar study on the effects of the areal density of a
glass-fibre woven fabric made composite thin-plate based on different ballistic performance mechanisms were also
investigated. Based on the findings, the areal density has shown a linear relation along the perforation-threshold
energy.

The contact time of the plate and the projectile also depends on the energy at the perforation-threshold. However,
fibre failures were recorded as the prominent energy absorbing mechanism regardless of the areal density at the
perforation areas [264]. Similar to the 2D fabrics and laminated material, 3D woven angle-interlock fabric
reinforced composites are used in various ballistic applications and its ballistic performances are also influenced by
the areal densities. A non perforation ballistic test on two different 3D woven angle-interlock fabric reinforced
composites with same and different area density of panels were carried out.

Based on the damaged evaluations, reinforced composites with heavier density exhibits better overall ballistic
performance [265]. The ballistic performances of Al2O3 armor tiles has been also increased by adding the thin
membranes made of different fibre materials including glass-fiber tape, E-glass/epoxy pre-preg and Carbon-
fiber/epoxy pre-preg. Adding of such thin membrane layers of E-glass/epoxy pre-preg could improve the ballistic
efficiency up to a 20% with only 2.5% increase in target areal density [266].