Ballistic impact performance and surface failure mechanisms of two-dimensional and three-dimensional woven p-aramid multi-layer fabrics for lightweight women ballistic vest applications

This paper investigates the influences of woven fabric type, impact locations and number of layers on ballistic impact performances of target panels through trauma dimension and panel surface damage mechanisms for lightweight women ballistic vest design. Three panels with 30, 35 and 40 layers of two-dimensional plain weave and another two panels with 30 and 40 layers of three-dimensional warp interlock fabrics were prepared. The three-dimensional woven fabric was manufactured using automatic Dornier weaving machine, whereas the two-dimensional fabric (with similar p-aramid fibre type (Twaron®)) was received from the Teijin Company. The ballistic tests were carried out according to NIJ Standard-0101.06 Level IIIA. Based on the result, woven fabric construction type, number of layers and target locations were directed an upshot on the trauma measurement values of the tested target panels. For example, 40 layers of two-dimensional plain weave fabric panels show lower trauma measurement values as compared to its counterpart three-dimensional warp interlock fabric panels with similar layer number. Moreover, 40 layers of two-dimensional fabric panels revealed 47% and 39% trauma depth reduction as compared to panels with 30 layers of two-dimensional fabric panel in moulded (target point 1) and non-moulded (target point 6), respectively. Due to higher amount of primary yarn involvement, two-dimensional plain weave fabric panel face higher level of local surface damages but less severe and fibrillated yarns than three-dimensional warp interlock fabrics panels. Moreover, three-dimensional warp interlock fabric panels required higher number of layers compared to two-dimensional plain weave aramid fabrics to halt the projectiles. Similarly, based on the post-mortem analysis of projectile, higher projectile debris deformation was recorded for panels having higher number of layers for both types of fabrics at similar target locations.