High Speed Impact Studies of Kevlar Fabric with and without STF

Kevlar fabrics have good energy absorption capacity and are widely used in defence, sports, and in impact resistance applications. To further improve these impact properties, materials such as shear thickening fluid (STF) could be used as they are believed to increase the composite’s impact resisting property due to an increase in frictional interaction. The present work involves the simulation of impact studies of the Kevlar fabrics with and without STF. The modelling is done through LS-Dyna which is a multipurpose software and analysis is carried out for different number of Kevlar fabrics of size 150 mm × 150 mm with edges being fixed. Ballistic limits, residual velocities and energy absorption of these fabrics are obtained for different velocities ranging from 50 to 150 m/s. These results are compared with the experimental values obtained through a single-stage air gun an in house setup developed by us. The numerical values show good agreement with the experimental values and effect of STF on energy absorption is also studied and it is seen that there is improvement in energy absorption and ballistic limit which is observed both in numerical studies as well as in experiments.