Comparison of stab behaviors of uncoated and coated woven fabrics from experimental and finite element analyses

This paper reports the stab failure behaviors of coated and uncoated woven fabric in experimental and finite element analysis (FEA) approaches. In the experimental approach, the quasi-static stab behaviors of both the fabrics under the penetration of a rigid penetrator were tested to obtain the load–displacement curves. The stab failure morphologies were also observed and photographed to show the stab damage modes. In particular, the load–displacement curves were compared to find the difference between the coated and uncoated woven fabrics during stab penetration. In the FEA, microstructure geometrical models of both the fabrics were established to calculate the developments of stab damages. The influences of structure parameters of the fabrics on the stab resistance were discussed and the differences of the stab strengths between the two fabrics were also compared. From the FEA results, the development of stab damage could be visually displayed. With the visual results, it will be helpful to analyze the stress distribution under stab deformation, and to reveal the stab damage mechanism.