Study on impact resistance of Nano‐SiO2 reinforced STG/Kevlar composites.

As a flexible protective material, shear thickening gel (STG)/Kevlar composite still has great potential to improve its impact resistance. In this paper, a novel STG/SiO2/Kevlar flexible protective composite was prepared by impregnating STG/SiO2 into Kevlar. Due to the excellent SiO2 enhancement effect, the STG/SiO2/Kevlar exhibited a higher safeguarding property than the STG/Kevlar. The maximum yarn pull‐out force of STG/SiO2/Kevlar reached 61.7 N, which was higher than the 41.9 N of STG/Kevlar. The uniform puncture results showed that the maximum bearing capacity of STG/Kevlar and STG/SiO2/Kevlar increased by 116.8% and 215.3%, respectively, compared with pure Kevlar. The impact test results indicated that 20 layers of STG/SiO2/Kevlar could not be penetrated by the knife stab and 24 layers of STG/SiO2/Kevlar could not be penetrated by 7.62 mm pistol bullets. Finally, the enhancement mechanism of impact resistance of STG/SiO2/Kevlar composites was studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]