Fiber-Level Modeling of Dynamic Strength of Kevlar® KM2 Ballistic Fabric

In recent years, modeling of the high-performance ballistic fabric has gradually shifted from the continuum and yarn length scales to the sub-yarn length scale which enabled establishment of the relationships between the fabric penetration resistance and various fiber-level phenomena such as fiber-fiber friction, fiber twist, transverse properties of the fibers, and the stochastic nature of fiber strength. In general, these sub-yarn modeling schemes involve special numerical techniques (e. g., digital-element method) and customized computational codes. This status of the sub-yarn fabric-modeling methods and tools makes them not readily available to wider academic and industrial research communities. In the present work, an attempt is made to use conventional finite-element methods and tools in order to carry out sub-yarn numerical analysis of the penetration resistance of Kevlar (R) KM2 ballistic fabric. The goal was to demonstrate that results could be obtained which are comparable to their digital-element method = based counterparts. Specifically, a series of transient nonlinear dynamics finite-element analyses was carried out in order to investigate the role of the following two important sub-yarn phenomena on the penetration resistance of Kevlar (R) KM2 fabric: (a) fiber transverse properties including nonlinear elastic and plastic response and (b) fiber-fiber friction within the context of stochastically distributed fiber axial strength. It is generally found that the results obtained are consistent with their digital-element method-based counterparts.