Stab resistance of smart polymer coated textiles reinforced with particle additives

Smart materials have attracted much attention due to their potential applications. Shear stiffening polymer is one of smart materials having increasing stiffness under loading. Although there are only few studies dealing with shear stiffening polymers, we developed a new concept by reinforcing this material with carbide particles for the first time. In this work, different amounts of carbide particles were included in a shear stiffening polymer and the influences of additives were investigated through rheological measurements. From the rheological results, it can be stated that carbide particles result in much stiffer properties in the polymers however, the composites still keep their viscous behavior at low shear rates. In addition to the rheological investigations, these smart materials were used as coatings on high performance textiles which were subjected to low velocity stab tests. According to the stab tests, shear stiffening polymer provides a substantial improvement in the energy absorption of the targets however, carbide reinforced ones take this development a step further by the effect of additional particles within the matrix.