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3D Warp Interlock Fabric Structure and their Applications in Soft and Hard Armour Protections

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Abstract

Textile materials can be used as a soft solution to protect the human body of the soldier and as a hard solution to provide more efficient armour for various types of vehicles. Their advantages are numerous in terms of performance versus weight, forming ability and availability of different types of high-performance yarns. Special attention has been given to the 3D warp interlock fabrics structure in the above applications. For the soft protection application, a body armour adapted to the female breast was designed based on different layers of 3D warp interlock fabric made of para-aramid yarns. A compromise was found between the formability criterion, which facilitates the adaptation of the body armour to the body, and the kinetic energy absorption in ballistic impact, which tends to minimize the blunt trauma criterion. For hard protection, a new vehicle up-armour was found to protect the interior from the high-velocity impact of projectiles. A compromise was also found to optimize the kinetic energy absorption in this high-velocity impact and the capacity of dynamic deformation of the protection solution to avoid structural damage and keep the integrity of the armour solution safe.

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Data Availability Statements

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank DGA, ARQUUS, SMDTex and CREL for helping us by funding or doing the impact tests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Génie Et Matériaux Textiles, ENSAIT, GEMTEX, 59000, Lille, France

    F. Boussu, M. A. Abtew & P. Bruniaux

  2. Université Lille Nord de France, 59000, Lille, France

    F. Boussu, M. A. Abtew & P. Bruniaux

  3. Ethiopian Institute of Textile and Fashion Technology, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

    M. A. Abtew

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  1. F. Boussu
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Boussu, F., Abtew, M.A. & Bruniaux, P. 3D Warp Interlock Fabric Structure and their Applications in Soft and Hard Armour Protections. Appl Compos Mater 29, 65–82 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10443-021-09955-2

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