Reinforced Plastics  Volume 61, Number 2  March/April 2017 www.reinforcedplastics.

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Ballistic composites – protecting the

FEATURE

protectors
George Marsh

It seems scarcely credible that thin polymer fibers, bound together in resin, can stop projectiles ranging
from a hand-gun bullet to a high-power rifle round, but they can and have done so, saving many lives in
the process. Composite body armor protects a wide range of civilians from security guards to police
officers and from bailiffs to VIPs.

But of course, it is military forces who are the leading user group. degraded. Second is a slowing phase and third is the catching of
Traditional solutions for 20th Century military armor, based the round so that it is retained within the protective garment.
chiefly on steel and ceramic plates, were really too heavy for Laminates are designed to maximize the effectiveness of these
soldiers, indeed for many vehicles as well. Composites have in- stages. Outer layers that provide controlled delamination on
creasingly proved to be the answer, being much lighter for the impact are effective in deforming the tip of a projectile, thereby
same stopping power and more pliable. Certain polymer compo- blunting it. Certain non-polymer composites, for instance those
sites show, when appropriately engineered, remarkable energy that are ceramic based, may be harder than polymer composites
dissipation properties, being able to absorb the kinetic energy and therefore more effective in this phase. Even so, reinforced
from bullets and other high-speed projectiles before these can plastics often provide the best balance of weight, anti-ballistic
harm their human targets. They can also protect against knives. performance and cost.
Various mechanisms account for this. Pushing fibers aside Underlying composite layers subsequently absorb kinetic ener-
against their stiffness and the hold exerted by the composite they gy progressively as more and more fibers are displaced and
are part of, absorbs energy and the greater the number of fibers
encountered, the stronger is the effect. Still more energy is
absorbed as fibers become stretched during contact with projec-
tiles, elongation-before-break being an important variable for
armor designers. A third mechanism is that of delamination,
whereby energy is absorbed in parting fibers from their resin
containment medium.
Yet another mechanism occurs in woven fabrics where the
woven intersections slow down the shock waves propagated along
the fibers from the impact point, absorbing energy as they do so.
This does, however, increase the strain within the material and
when this exceeds what the material can tolerate, penetration can
occur. Hence whether to use wovens or non-wovens is a matter for
careful consideration by protection designers (Figs. 1–3).
According to ballistic specialists with Swiss-headquartered com-
posites firm Gurit AG, stopping a bullet has three distinct stages.
FIG. 1
First is the blunting of the projectile so that its penetrating power is
Flack jackets based on Kevlar or other proprietary aramid can be worn
under normal clothing by both men and women. Image licensed by
E-mail address: georgehmarsh@ntlworld.com. Shutterstock.

0034-3617/ß 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

96 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.repl.2015.10.003
Reinforced Plastics  Volume 61, Number 2  March/April 2017
FIG. 2
Kevlar helmet with camouflage cover and protective goggles. Image
licensed by Shutterstock.
stretched. Composites used in body armor, where structural
strength is less of a requirement than in vehicle protection,
generally have very high fiber content, up to 80% or more, and
specialized polymer fibers are used. Even in armor that has a
ceramic outer face, this is generally backed by composite laminate
to meet the slowing and catching requirements, including of
penetrative fragments that are expelled from improvised explosive
devices (IEDs) and fragmentation rounds (such fragments are
known as spall).
IEDs deliver blast, fragments and fire so that combined protec-
tion against these is desirable. Materials that mitigate these effects
as well as being environmentally tolerant – to moisture, heat, etc. –
are in demand. Another required attribute is that they should be
able to resist not just single hits but also repeated shots, as from a
machine gun.
Body armor is typically based on woven and non-woven fabrics
that are flexible enough to provide wearers with freedom of
movement while still possessing high anti-ballistic properties.
Many garments incorporate extra protection in strategic areas
such as over the heart; this can take the form of plates of compos-
ite, ceramic, metal or hybrid material inserted into containment
FIG. 3
From police officers to soldiers, Dyneema Force Multiplier Technology is protecting personnel around the world.
FEATURE
pockets incorporated in the garment. Such inserts are typical of
protection that is rifle ballistic rated since fabrics alone cannot
normally stop a rifle round traveling at 800 m/s whereas they can
prevent penetration by a hand gun bullet traveling at half that
speed. Although body armor designed to defeat rifle fire is inevi-
tably more rigid than fabric-only garments, keeping the armor
inserts separated ensures an adequate level of garment flexibility
for most purposes.
Nylon start
An early example of the transition from metals to composites for
personnel protection was the British Army’s GS Mk 6 combat
helmet, issued during the 1960s. This had an outer shell of ballistic
FEATURE
nylon impregnated with a 50:50 mix of phenoformaldehyde and
polyvinyl butyral (PVB) resins, this matrix accounting for 20% of
the composite’s weight. The shell comprised 23 layers of plain-
weave 290 g/m2 nylon, weighing 1 kg for the medium size of
helmet. An inner impact absorbing layer of high-density polyeth-
ylene (HDPE) foam brought this weight up to 1.3 kg. Fiberglass,
and even combined nylon and fiberglass, were also tried during
those early years, providing some benefits over nylon.
During the 1970s, the US Army was to adopt para-aramid fibers
for head protection, albeit in resins similar to those used by the
British. PVB-based resins were readily Beta-staged into a prepreg
that could then be hot-molded to the tight complex curvatures
required for combat helmets. Aramids, the best known of which
are DuPont’s Kevlar and Twaron from Teijin (the Netherlands and
Japan), subsequently spread from helmets into body protection.
The Kevlar ‘flak jacket’, for instance, became almost a generic,
initially for ballistic vests that protect against fragments from
shells, grenades and other munitions, but also later for garments
that are substantially bullet-proof.
Para-aramid fibers have a rigid rod-like molecular structure that
provides high-tensile strength, high elongation-to-break and good
damage tolerance. They are also inherently non-flammable. Today
they tend to be embedded in more contemporary matrices, typi-
cally epoxy or phenolic. The resulting composites are heavily fiber
dominated. Like other specialists in ballistic fibers, DuPont Pro-
tection Technologies has worked hard to optimize its base material
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for ballistic use. Refined molecular structures in products like
Kevlar XP and Kevlar M5 combine high strength with superior
thermal and flame resistance. According to global business director
Jeroen B. Jacobs, Kevlar is, weight for weight, five times stronger
than steel and, in its various forms optimized for different envir-
onments and user groups, has saved thousands of lives.
Despite the dominance of Kevlar and other aramids, glass still
survives as an armor fiber. There is a place for the higher-perfor-
mance fibers, such as S-glass used in preference to the more
general E-glass. According to Gurit, this raises ballistic tolerance
by 10–20%. Although this company’s recently launched PF700
ballistic prepreg is mainly intended as a vehicle armor rather than
for personnel protection applications, it is worthy of mention here
FEATURE
because it exemplifies once again the sheer versatility of glass fiber
and its unsuspected utility in meeting tough anti-ballistic require-
ments. PF700 uses the fibers in combination with phenolic resin,
the latter being preferred over epoxy due to its flame resistance,
even though epoxy may be stronger.
Carbon and boron have been experimented with but the brittle
nature of these fibers has restricted their use in anti-ballistic
applications.
Later fibers
Latterly there has been penetration of the market by high perform-
ing fibers based on ultra high-density polyethylene (UHDPE).
These include Dyneema from DSM Dyneema, part of Dutch con-
cern Royal DSM, and Spectra from Honeywell in the United States.
These are claimed to be 15 or more times stronger than steel and up
to 40% stronger than aramid on a weight for weight basis. Spectra
fibers have a tensile modulus of 900–1500 g per denier, compared
with less than 500 g/d for steel or glass. Both fiber brands have
been used in formulations designed to protect against bullets fired
from, inter alia, powerful AK47 assault rifles.
On the downside for UHDPE fibers are a lower thermal toler-
ance, limited drapability and high cost. Moreover, it is difficult to
weave these stiff fibers, hence ballistic vests made with them tend
not to be woven but to utilize parallel spun fibers instead.
Nevertheless, Honeywell says that the high resistance to water,
chemicals and ultra-violet light that its Spectra fibers possess,
along with their remarkable strength, are making them a material
of choice for personnel protection. The company’s proprietary
Spectra Shield is a prepreg laminate comprising U/D fiber tape
impregnated with thermoplastic rubber-based resin film. (Some
helmets utilize thermoset resins, used to contribute the structural
strength needed when soldiers sit on their helmets!) Alternating 08
and 908 plies are press-consolidated to form a flexible laminate
material that can be sold to customers in rolls.
Honeywell Shield is used in expanded small arms protective
inserts (ESAPI), each of these comprising a ceramic strike plate
backed by a Shield spall liner. Shield was recently selected by Reed
Composite Solutions for the AMUR body armor plate inserts it
produces for law enforcement and military armor vests. Mean-
while, Korean body armor manufacturer Dae-Sung is using Spectra
Shield II material in combat helmets that weigh a fifth less than
their predecessors. Spectra Shield and Gold Shield (the latter is a
hybrid that also incorporates aramid fibers) ballistic materials are
the basis for a new generation of stronger, lighter combat helmets
under evaluation for the US Army.
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Reinforced Plastics  Volume 61, Number 2  March/April 2017
Dyneema is a gel-spun multiple-filament UHDPE fiber that
combines high strength, high modulus in the fiber direction
and resistance to most chemicals. Gel spinning involves melting
the PE polymer but also dissolving it in a solvent so that molecular
chains become realigned, the resulting high alignment enhancing
fiber strength. The solvent is then extracted. Low diameter fibers
are produced in a range of strengths and densities to suit different
ballistic applications.
Another polymer fiber, polyphenylene-benzobisoxiazole (PBO)
that emerged in the 1990s, notably under the trade name Zylon
(Toyoba, Japan), has 1.6 times the tensile strength of aramid, but
has a high cost. An all-PBO ballistic vest would probably be very
expensive but the fact that such a garment could be made much
thinner for equivalent performance could be a considerable draw if
costs could be reduced. A US company started using PBO in
protection for police officers in 1998, but five years later withdrew
the product after an officer died despite having been wearing a PBO
vest when shot. Degradation in properties over time proved to be
the issue.
Ballistic optimization
There are so many variables ballistic garment designers must
juggle – material amount, fiber volume fraction, fiber type and
diameter, woven/non-woven, fabric geometry, fiber sizing, ply
count, fiber/resin bond strength, resin type and process parame-
ters, and so on – that optimization can be a considerable challenge,
requiring careful experimentation and modeling.
Designers optimize their products in different ways according to
the types of fiber they are dealing with. For example, Spectra and
Dyneema are difficult to wet out and so lend themselves to
material forms that are highly fiber dominated, as in ‘starved’
laminates. On impact, much energy is absorbed through fiber
elongation. A glass composite, on the other hand, with its strong
resin-fiber bonds, will tend to dissipate impact energy through
delamination, so tailoring interfacial bond strength can influence
the amount of energy that can be absorbed in the process.
It is well known that fabric woven with a large number of
densely packed, fine-denier fibers is a better impact absorber than
a thicker, coarser fabric. The way material is laid up can also have a
strong influence on energy dissipation. 0–908 cross-ply forms, for
instance, enable energy to be spread orthogonally whereas a
component that is long and narrow might benefit from a unidi-
rectional lay-up. Stacking para-aramid material in layers, and
perhaps stitching them together with z direction fibers, enables
a projectile’s kinetic energy to be distributed volumetrically,
giving further scope for harmless dissipation.
Sometimes a material manufacturer can provide benefits ancil-
lary to effective optimization. For example, Teijin Aramid BV,
producer of high-performance Twaron aramid fiber, maximized
the ‘multiple fine fibers effect’ in its Laminated Fabric Technology
(LFT), which utilizes woven microfiber yarns sandwiched between
thermoplastic film layers. This results in a very light protective
material that is used in soft body armor. Interestingly, Teijin says
its ballistic materials are recyclable and the company buys dis-
carded material back for conversion into other forms such as pulp
for use as an asbestos replacement. This, along with guaranteed
certificated demilitarization, means that used items can be turned
into a revenue stream.
Reinforced Plastics  Volume 61, Number 2  March/April 2017 FEATURE

Then there are novel and emergent forms, some of which differ materials portfolio. Future possibilities include the use of nano
from established formats. Certain material hybrids, such as com- particles, which experimenters report can harden ballistic compo-
bined steel and polymer fibers or ceramic/polymer fibers, embedded sites while, further ahead still, composites that incorporate graphene
in resin, are non-conventional composites that expand the available may prove able to augment that vital ‘protection for the protectors‘.

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