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In some applications,
clothing must provide protection to the wearer against external forces.
Security personnel need to be provided with protection against blows,
knives or bullets. Motocyclists clothing is a key protection against
serious abrasion and injury. Various types of body armour have developed
as a result, from soft woven pads to rigid metal or plastic armour
plates. New technologies have the potential to provide protection in
more wearable forms, reducing weight, ensuring the wearer remain cool
and appearing more fashionable.
Passive Functions
- Impact
resistance/ballistic protection
-
Mechanical shear resistance
Kevlar Body Armor
Kevlar is a nylon-like (Aramid)
polymer fibre with the highest tensile strength of all known fibres. It
has been used for many years in production of overt body armour for
military and security forces, in conjunction with hard plates. The
picture on the left illustrates a typical arrangement.
Several companies now integrate
Kevlar layers into standard clothing to create covert protection.
Bladerunner, for example produce
a range of undershirts and jackets protected against impact and stab.
Their Black Weatherproof Disguised Bullet/Stab-proof Jacket (on the
right) armour protects against a range of bullet impacts, for example 9mm
Full Metal Jacket Round Nose projectiles, with a weight of 8gm (124gr)
at 430 m/s. The jacket also protects against stabs, cuts, slashes
with sharp and blunt edged weapons like hypodermic needles, ice picks,
knives and broken bottles up to 33 Joules.
 
 Honeywell
Performance Fibers produced a “smart response” fiber to enhance
passenger safety due to its unique energy-management properties. Securus™
is a polyester copolymer fibers developed for managed-load applications.
Combining polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which provides restraining
properties, and polycaprolactone (PCL), which provides flexibility and
cushioning.
During a collision, Securus fiber seat belts
protect the passenger in a three-step process: holding the passenger
securely in place; elongating and cushioning the body as it absorbs the
energy of its forward motion; and restraining and limiting that motion.
Dow Corning Active Protection System Textile
This material is a 3
dimensional spacer fabric material containing silicone polymer oils -
which provides a flexible and breathable solution to the issues of
wearable yet highly protecting body armour - it moulds to the body yet
passes European motorcycle tests for impact protection.
 
 
Under normal conditions the silicone
polymers flow easily and therefore the textile is soft and flexible. On
impact the polymers behave like a solid system as they are unable to
flow sufficiently fast and therefore the textile stiffens and absorbs
the impact.
The material is incorporated into
Rukka® SRO Anatomic Suit which won the Avantex 2007 Innovation
Award.
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