An experimental study of the effect of ply orientation on ballistic impact performance of multi-ply fabric panels

This paper presents a comprehensive experimental study of the effect of ply orientation on the ballistic performance of the multi-ply fabric panels. The fabric panels used in the experiments were constructed by laying plies of plain-woven fabrics in a selection of orientations. Particular attention was paid to the stacking sequence of fabrics with different laying angles. Ballistic impact tests were carried out on such angled fabric panels. The results showed significant improvement in energy-absorbing capacity of the angled multi-ply panel over the conventional aligned panel where all fabric plies are laid in the same orientation. The impact energy absorption by these angled fabric panels showed a 14% increase over the aligned counterpart, depending on the number of the plies. Optimizing the stacking sequence of the angled plies caused a 15% increase in impact energy absorption. For the panels with a large number of plies, such as the eight-ply panels, the effective panel construction can be determined according to the performance of the sub-level ply group.