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Materials Science and Engineering A 529 (2011) 224–229

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Materials Science and Engineering A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/msea

Improving the impact resistance performance of Kevlar fabrics using silica based
shear thickening fluid
Ankita Srivastava, Abhijit Majumdar ∗ , Bhupendra Singh Butola
Department of Textile Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi 110 016, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Impact energy absorption capacity of Kevlar woven fabrics has been improved using silica particle based
Received 24 April 2011 shear thickening fluid (STF). The influence of padding pressure and silica concentration in STF on add-on%,
Received in revised form 13 July 2011 yarn pull out force and impact energy absorption has been studied. Higher padding pressure reduces the
Accepted 8 September 2011
STF add-on%, but increases the impact energy absorption. Therefore, it is possible to achieve enhanced
Available online 16 September 2011
impact energy absorption performance at lower STF add-on%, i.e. lower fabric weight. It is also understood
that the yarn to yarn friction, as measured by the quasi-static yarn pull-out force, only partially influences
Keywords:
the impact performance of STF treated Kevlar woven fabrics.
Impact resistance
Kevlar © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Shear thickening fluid
Silica particle
Woven fabrics

1. Introduction
Kevlar woven fabrics are often used as the base material for
the soft body armours. Generally 20–50 layers of Kevlar fabrics are
required to stop a bullet fired by a shotgun or revolver. Use of multi-
layer Kevlar fabrics not only makes the body armour heavy but also
limits the flexibility and mobility of the wearer. As a result, protec-
tive body armours are primarily used to prevent lethal injuries to
torso and head. Therefore, development of materials which would
provide better impact resistance at lower weight has remained
a perennial challenge in body armour research. In recent years,
the application of shear thickening fluid (STF) on body armour
materials has gained the attention of materials scientists by demon-
strating promising results in terms of impact energy absorption.
STFs are non-Newtonian fluids, which show drastic rise in vis-
cosity beyond a critical shear rate. Considering the fact that bullet
impact takes place at a very high speed (300–1000 m/s), STF can be
triggered to the higher level of viscosity during impact. This may
induce a liquid to solid like transition in STF during impact and
thus the mobility of the threads in the fabrics become restricted
and energy dissipation improves. Besides, the solidification of STF
also facilitates the absorption of energy during impact. Theoretical
investigation on the causes of shear thickening was conducted by
Hoffman [1–3]. Hoffman’s original hypothesis was that the particles
order into layers at low rates of shear, but at some critical point an
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 011 26591405; fax: +91 011 26581103.
E-mail address: majumdar@textile.iitd.ac.in (A. Majumdar).
instability develops, which causes them to break out of their layers
and jam into one another. Windhab [4] explained that particle char-
acteristics, which are expected to have an impact on the structuring
behaviour in shear flows are particle size, size distribution, shape,
particle morphology and interfacial properties between solid par-
ticle and surrounding liquid phase. Several other researchers [5,6]
have investigated the shear thickening phenomenon of colloidal
suspensions.
Applied researches on the development of body armour mate-
rials using STF began only in the last decade. Lee et al. [7,8]
demonstrated that the impact performance of Kevlar fabrics can
be improved significantly by the addition of colloidal STF. Impreg-
nated STF–fabric composites showed improved ballistic protection
as compared with simple stacks of untreated fabrics and STF. Wet-
zel and Wagner [9] compared the ballistic performance of fully
impregnated Kevlar with the patterned impregnated Kevlar (both
having six layers) and found that the patterning has little or no
effect on the impact resistance. Wetzel et al. [10] also investigated
the effect of rheological parameters of STF on the performance of
treated Kevlar fabrics. Researches by Tan et al. [11] showed that the
ballistic limits of single, double and quadruple ply fabric systems
increase with the concentration of silica particles in silica water
suspension (SWS) up to an optimum level of 40%. Beyond 40% con-
centration, the ballistic limit starts to decrease. Kalman et al. [12]
investigated the effect of particle hardness on the impact perfor-
mance of STF treated fabrics by synthesizing a dispersion of poly
methyl methacrylate (PMMA) particles. SEM micrographs of the
damaged zone showed that, unlike the silica STF, the softer PMMA
particles did not abrade the Kevlar. The ballistic results showed that

0921-5093/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.msea.2011.09.021
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A. Srivastava et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 529 (2011) 224–229 225

Table 1
Specification of Kevlar fabrics.
Parameters Fabric 1
Weave Plain
Areal density (g/m2 ) 200
Yarn denier 1000
Fabric sett (ends and picks per inch) 22 × 22
Finish Water repellent
the softer PMMA particles led to reduced performance in compari-
son to the harder silica dispersions. Some researchers [13–16] have
also reported the synthesis and rheological characterization of sil-
ica particle based STF and spike and stab resistance performance
of Kevlar fabrics treated with the STF. In recent years, some excit-
ing researches have been conducted using finite element analysis
method to understand the deformation and failure of textile and
polymeric materials during impact [17–19].
Although a lot of interest has been shown by researchers in
application of STF on body armour materials, some of the key
application parameters like padding mangle pressure, padding
speed and silica concentration in STF, etc. have not been stud-
ied methodically. Hence in this research, an effort has been
made to study the effect of two parameters namely padding
mangle pressure and silica concentration in STF (referred to as
STF concentration), on the impact performance of treated Kevlar
fabrics.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
Two types of Kevlar fabrics were used in this research. The
details of the fabrics are given in Table 1. Silica particles (R-972),
in powder form, were obtained from Evonik (formerly known as
Degussa, Germany). Polyethylene glycol or PEG (MW 200) and
ethanol were supplied by Merck Limited. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)
supplied by Fine Chem was also used in this study as an additive. The
200 g/m2 fabrics used in the study were pretreated with a fluoro-
carbon (PTFE) based water repellent surface finish while the other
fabric (465 g/m2 ) had no such finish.
2.2. Treatment of Kevlar fabrics with STF and polyvinyl alcohol
(PVA)
Fabric 2
STF was prepared by dispersing silica particles in PEG with vary-
Plain
465 ing amount of silica loadings (40%, 50% and 60%, w/w). Ethanol was
3100 added to decrease the surface tension of the dispersion to enable it
18 × 18 to wet the Kevlar fabric (STF:ethanol = 1:6). A high speed homoge-
– nizer at 17,800 rpm was used to make the dispersion. Kevlar fabric
samples were padded with the STF with varying padding mangle
pressures of 0.5 bar, 1 bar and 2 bar. Following padding, the fabrics
were dried at 80 ◦ C for 40 min in a hot air oven to evaporate ethanol
from the samples.
Polyvinyl alcohol was also applied on Kevlar fabrics to analyze
the effect of yarn to yarn friction in improving the impact resistance
performance. PVA powder (4%) was mixed in boiling distilled water
and stirred continuously for 15 min. This solution was kept for 12 h
and then Kevlar fabrics were padded using padding mangle pres-
sure of 1 bar. After treatment, fabric was dried at 80 ◦ C for 30 min
in a hot air oven.
2.3. Rheological test of STF
The rheological test of the STF was done using Anton Parr Physica
MCR 101 stress controlled rheometer using parallel plate geome-
try. The gap between the two parallel plates was kept at 0.5 mm.
The viscosity was measured at three different levels of tempera-
ture (0 ◦ C, 25 ◦ C and 50 ◦ C) using Peltier temperature control device
of the equipment. For a given temperature, the shear rate was
increased from 0 to 200 s−1 and corresponding viscosity was mea-
sured. The rheological results have been shown in Fig. 1.
2.4. Particle size analysis
Particle size analysis of silica was carried out on Beckman Coul-
ter Delsa Nano C particle size analyzer. This analysis was done by
taking 0.1% silica particle dispersed in ethanol. The average particle
size was found to be 278 nm for silica R-972.

Fig. 1. Shear thickening behaviour of silica particle based STF.

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Fig. 2. Scanning electron micrograph of STF treated Kevlar filament in 200 g/m
fabrics.
2.5. SEM image analysis
The surface characteristics of various STF treated Kevlar fab-
rics were studied with the help of scanning electron microscope
(ZEISS, model: EVO 50). The samples were first coated with
a silver layer to provide surface conduction before their scan-
ning. The micrographs of Kevlar filaments extracted from the STF
treated 200 g/m2 and 465 g/m2 fabrics are shown in Figs. 2 and 3,
respectively.
2.6. Yarn pull-out force
Yarn pull-out is a quasi-static test and it represents the friction
between the yarns in a woven fabric. During ballistic impact, impact
energy is dissipated by various modes and yarn to yarn friction is
considered to be one of them [20,21]. One end of the fabric strip is
held by the fixed jaw of Instron tensile tester (Model 3365). Then,
one free end of the yarn is pulled out from the fabric by the movable
jaw at a constant velocity. The peak force required to pull-out the
yarn from the fabric is noted which gives the idea of yarn to yarn
friction in the fabrics.
2.7. Dynamic impact resistance test
Dynamic impact tests were conducted on treated as well as
untreated Kevlar fabrics by using drop-weight testing instrument
(CEAST, Model: FRACTOVIS PLUS). The speed of impact was 8 m/s.
Fig. 3. Scanning electron micrograph of STF treated Kevlar filament in 465 g/m2
fabrics.
Table 2
Add-on% of silica at different levels of padding pressure and concentration.
Padding Silica Add on (%)
pressure (Bar) concentration (%)
200 g/m2 fabrics 465 g/m2 fabrics
0.5 40 4.4 6.1
50 5.2 5.9
60 6.4 6.4
1.0 40 4.1 5.0
50 4.7 5.7
60 5.9 5.8
2.0 40 1.9 2.5
50 2.2 2.6
60 2.1 2.9
The diameter of the impactor, which has a hemispherical head, is
2 1.3 cm. The fabric samples were firmly held between two circular
jaws with pneumatic pressure. The inner diameter of the circular
jaws is 7.6 cm. The instrument measures the impact energy in
terms of Joules.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Rheological analysis
The rheological results of STF having 60% concentration are
shown in Fig. 1. It is observed that shear thickening commences
between the shear rate of 20–50 s−1 depending on the temper-
ature. It is evident that at higher temperature, shear thickening
occurs at higher shear rate. The shear thickening behaviour is
more prominent at 0 ◦ C temperature as the viscosity rises up to
185 Pa s. However for 25 ◦ C and 50 ◦ C temperature viscosity rises
up to 160 Pa s and 100 Pa s, respectively. This implies that the tem-
perature has a significant effect on shear thickening behaviour of
STF. As shear thickening plays some role in determining the impact
performance of STF treated Kevlar fabrics, this performance is
likely to vary with temperature. Hence while engineering soft body
armors having specific performance levels, the effect of tempera-
ture should be kept in consideration. Otherwise, armors designed
for low temperature regions may fail if used at warmer locations.
3.2. Influence of padding pressure and STF concentration on
add-on%
The effect of padding pressure and STF concentration on weight
add-on% is shown in Table 2. The add-on% is generally higher for the
465 g/m2 fabrics as compared to that of 200 g/m2 fabrics. The rea-
son may be attributed to the fact that the former does not have any
fluoro-carbon finish which ensures better penetration and distribu-
tion of STF within the fabric structure resulting in higher add-on%
although the areal density of the fabric, based on which the add-
on% is calculated, is high. Scanning electron micrographs shown
in Figs. 2 and 3 also depicts that silica particles are more uni-
formly distributed in case of 465 g/m2 fabrics. From Table 2, it is
also observed that as the padding pressure increases, for the same
level of STF concentration, the weight add-on% reduces. This is due
to the fact that higher padding pressure squeezes out more fluid
from the fabric during the padding process. For the same padding
pressure, weight add-on% generally increases with the increase in
STF concentration. Figs. 4 and 5 depict the simultaneous effect of
padding pressure and STF concentration on the weight add-on%
for the 200 g/m2 and 465 g/m2 fabrics, respectively. From the sur-
face plots, it is evident that padding pressure has strong influence
on the weight add-on%. The effect of concentration on add-on% is
less pronounced as compared to that of padding pressure. For both
the fabrics, the maximum add-on% is attained when the padding
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A. Srivastava et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 529 (2011) 224–229 227

Table 3
Yarn pull-out force of Kevlar fabrics.

Padding pressure (Bar) Silica concentration (%) 200 g/m2 fabrics 465 g/m2 fabrics

Yarn pull out force (kg) % Increase Yarn pull out force (kg) % Increase

Untreated – 0.39 – 0.54 –

0.5 40 0.68 74.4 2.18 303.7
50 0.75 92.3 2.62 385.2
60 0.81 107.7 2.65 390.7
1.0 40 0.68 74.4 2.16 300.0
50 0.70 79.5 2.04 277.8
60 0.71 82.1 2.10 288.9
2.0 40 0.62 59.0 1.83 238.9
50 0.69 76.9 1.96 263.0
60 0.74 89.7 2.01 272.2
1.0 PVA (4%) 0.40 2.6 2.79 416.7

pressure is minimum (0.5 bar) and STF concentration is maximum

(60%).

3.3. Influence of padding pressure and STF concentration on yarn

pull-out force

Table 3 shows the results of yarn pull-out test at various levels of

Fig. 4. Weight add-on% for 200 g/m2 fabrics.
padding pressure and STF concentration. In general, the yarn pull-
out force is higher for 465 g/m2 fabrics than that of 200 g/m2 fabrics
as the yarn diameter is coarser in case of the former and therefore
it has greater area of contact with the other yarns.
It is observed from Table 3 that as the padding pressure
increases, for the same STF concentration, yarn pull-out force shows
concomitant reduction. However, for the same padding pressure,
higher concentration of STF results in higher yarn pull-out force.
Figs. 6 and 7 depict the surface plots of yarn pull-out force against
different levels of STF concentration and padding pressure. It is
observed that padding pressure and STF concentration both influ-
ence the yarn pull-out force. For both the fabrics, highest yarn
pull-out force was attained at 0.5 bar padding pressure and 60%
STF concentration. On the other hand, for both the fabrics, lowest
yarn pull-out force was attained at 2 bar padding pressure and 40%
STF concentration. Therefore, it can be inferred that there is good
association between the trends of add-on% and yarn pull-out force.
Higher add-on% of silica particles on the Kevlar fabrics enhances

Fig. 5. Weight add-on% for 465 g/m2 fabrics.

Fig. 6. Yarn pull-out force for 200 g/m2 fabrics.
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228 A. Srivastava et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 529 (2011) 224–229

Fig. 7. Yarn pull-out force for 465 g/m2 fabrics.

Fig. 8. Impact energy absorption by 200 g/m2 fabrics.

the friction between the yarns and thereby produces higher yarn
pull-out force.
It is also noted from Table 3 that the treatment of Kevlar fabrics
with 4% PVA solution increases the yarn pull-out force drastically
for 465 g/m2 fabrics. However, the increase in yarn pull-out force is
only marginal for the 200 g/m2 fabrics. This may be due to the fact
that 465 g/m2 Kevlar fabrics are without water repellent treatment
and therefore PVA film is formed uniformly in case of 465 g/m2
fabrics and it increases yarn to yarn friction significantly. However,
as the 200 g/m2 fabrics have water repellent coating, the wetting
and penetration of PVA solution was poor causing only marginal
increase in yarn pull-out force.

3.4. Influence of padding pressure and STF concentration on

impact energy absorption

Table 4 shows the impact energy absorption results for 200 g/m2
and 465 g/m2 Kevlar fabrics, respectively. In general, for the same
STF concentration, increase in padding pressure increases the
impact energy. Besides, for the same padding pressure, higher
impact energy absorption is noticed with higher STF concentration.
Figs. 8 and 9 depict the surface plots of impact energy absorption
by the Kevlar fabrics at different levels of padding pressure and STF
concentration. It is observed that the highest energy was absorbed
when the padding pressure is maximum (2 bar) and STF concen- Fig. 9. Impact energy absorption by 465 g/m2 fabrics.
tration is also maximum (60%). In the preceding part, it was found

Table 4
Impact energy absorbed by Kevlar fabrics.

Padding pressure (bar) Silica concentration (%) 200 g/m2 fabrics 465 g/m2 fabrics

Impact energy (J) % Increase Impact energy (J) % Increase

Untreated – 25.3 – 41.4 –

0.5 40 30.9 21.9 114.4 176.6
50 35.7 40.9 114.4 176.7
60 40.4 59.4 119.2 188.3
1.0 40 32.8 29.6 87.8 112.2
50 44.3 74.8 115.7 179.8
60 44.6 76.0 123.2 197.8
2.0 40 35.0 38.0 104.5 152.7
50 48.8 92.8 122.2 195.5
60 51.6 103.6 129.3 212.8
1.0 PVA (4%) 32.5 28.3 60.7 46.7
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A. Srivastava et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A 529 (2011) 224–229
that the maximum weight add-on% and the maximum yarn pull-
out force were achieved when padding pressure was minimum
(0.5 bar) and STF concentration maximum (60%). Therefore, it can
be inferred that higher add-on% and higher yarn pull-out force do
not necessarily ensure better impact performance. One of the pos-
sible causes of such observation may be that increase in padding
pressure forces the silica particles deeper into the yarn structure
and results in better distribution on individual yarns and filaments.
Therefore, in spite of having lower add-on% at higher pressure, bet-
ter impact performance is attained due to more uniform application
of STF.
From Table 4, it is observed that PVA treated 200 g/m2 and
465 g/m2 Kevlar fabrics absorbed 28.2% and 46.7% more impact
energy, respectively, than the corresponding untreated Kevlar fab-
rics. This is interesting as the yarn pull-out force increased by
416.7% in case of the latter after treatment with PVA. However,
the improved yarn pull-out result has not been translated into
impact performance. This bolsters the perception that STF treated
Kevlar fabrics show enhanced impact performance only partly due
to increased friction between the constituent filaments and yarns.
However, the shear thickening effect seems to play a more pivotal
role in the energy absorption mechanism. This factor would play a
more important role if STF were distributed more uniformly in the
fabric structure.
The other important inference that can be drawn from the quasi-
static yarn-pull out and dynamic impact results is that the different
types of energy absorption mechanisms are at work at different
testing speeds. The testing speed for dynamic impact was 8 m/s
while it was only 0.3 m/min for yarn pull-out method. It has already
been discussed that while dynamic impact performance exhib-
ited an upward trend with increasing padding pressure (decreasing
add-on%), it was just the opposite in case of low speed yarn pull-
out test. It implies that predicting impact performance of materials
meant for high speed impact situations would give erroneous
results if evaluation is done with lower velocity tests.
4. Conclusions
The effect of STF concentration and padding pressure on the
performance of STF impregnated Kevlar woven fabrics have been
studied. Lower padding pressure and higher STF concentration
increases the weight add-on%. Weight add-on% has good associ-
ation with the yarn pull-out force results. The maximum weight
add-on% and maximum yarn pull-out force occur at minimum
padding pressure (0.5 bar) and maximum STF concentration (60%).
229
However, yarn pull-out force results do not agree well with the
impact energy absorption results as the maximum value of the
latter is achieved at maximum padding pressure (2 bar) and max-
imum STF concentration (60%). This indicates that increased yarn
to yarn friction, represented by higher yarn pull-out force, is only
partially responsible for the improved energy absorption of STF
treated Kevlar fabrics. Although higher padding pressure reduces
the weight add-on%, it ensures better penetration and uniform
distribution of the STF within the yarn structure. Therefore, it is
possible to develop STF treated Kevlar fabrics which is light-weight
yet better from impact resistance viewpoint.
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