Effect of Coating on the Ballistic Protection of Unidirectional Fabric Systems

Natural rubber latex (NRL) is commonly used in the manufacture of thin-film product, especially dipped goods. It has interesting physical properties such as high elasticity, high tensile strength and water vapour barrier properties that make it very suitable to be used as coating element. The present paper studies the effect of prevulcanised NRL coated unidirectional fabric on the ballistic performance of fabric systems. There are 4-ply of NRL coated fabrics arranged alternately at the back side of the 18-, 25-, and 28-layer of fabric systems. The energy absorption for the combination of neat and NRL coated fabric system seems to improve ballistic performance by reducing the depth of indentation on the clay backing material. This may due to the higher frictional forces between the neat and NRL coated plies which reduce the mobility of the bullet before it reaches the coated plies in the fabric system. Post-mortem deformation identified to support the energy absorption characteristics of the fabric systems are broken fibers, fiber delamination and ballistic punch effect.