Enhancement of silk fabric knife-stabbing resistance for soft body armor

Traditional silk, known for its strength, flexibility, and comfort, shows promise as a lightweight, comfortable material for stab-resistant armor. This study explores enhancing silk’s knife-stabbing resistance for soft body armor through surface treatments. This study aims to augment the knife-stabbing resistance of silk fabric for soft body armor. Designed a falling tower setup to investigate fabric responses under impact. Exploring the addition of layers with coatings like silicon dioxide deposition, rice ash deposition, and aluminum oxide particles, the investigation revealed significant enhancements. A solitary silk layer exclusively coated with resin exhibited improvements of approximately 37.07%, 29.21%, and 13.47% in stab resistance for rice ash, aluminum oxide, and silicon oxide particles, respectively. The specific knife penetration depth indicated that the coating is more effective in diminishing penetration depth. The research identified that 7 layers of pure silk and 3 layers coated with rice ash satisfy National Institute of Justice Standard–0115.00, S1 as 26 layers of silk fabric, demonstrating a reduction without compromising protective efficacy.