Leveraging the Synergistic Effect of Ceramic Particles and Shear Thickening Fluid to Develop P‐Aramid Fabric Based Stab‐Resistant Armor

ABSTRACT Stab‐resistant armors are essential for police and security forces. However, the mechanisms of failure during stab and bullet impacts are dissimilar due to huge differences in associated impact energy densities. This research aims to design a stab‐resistant armor by coating boron carbide (B ₄ C) ceramic particles of two different grades (40 μ, −325mesh, and 25 μ, F600) and shear thickening fluid (STF) on p‐aramid fabric. For the coating of ceramic particles, an acrylic co‐polymer based binder, and two different types of thickeners, namely emulsion, and acrylic co‐polymer based thickener were used. Dynamic stab tests were conducted according to NIJ‐0115.00 (Level 1) standard using 24 J impact energy. Results indicate that the acrylic co‐polymer based thickener causes marginal improvement in penetration depth (15.7–17.3 mm) compared to the neat sample (19.3 mm). Whereas, the emulsion thickener maintains flexibility of the ceramic coated fabrics, resulting in reduced penetration depth (4.9–10.7 mm). While increased ceramic content improves stab resistance, particle adhesion to fabric remains as a challenge. Due to the rougher surface, the larger ceramic particles show superior performance with a penetration depth of (4.9–10.7 mm) compared to their smaller counterpart (8.9–14.4 mm). B ₄ C particles, due to their extreme hardness, inflict significant damage to the knife tip and edge, thus placing ceramic particle coated fabrics at the strike face allows more response time to the rear layers treated with STF. When ceramic coated and STF impregnated fabric layers are placed at the strike and rear sides respectively, the fabric panel significantly outperforms its counterparts with individual treatments.