Ballistic performance of dry stacked flax fabrics

Abstract
Natural fibres have received a growing interest from the composite community over the last decade because they offer a low cost and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional reinforcing fibres. Natural fibre reinforced materials are currently used in different domains such as the automotive industry for example. However, there are only few works in literature on the ballistic protection offered by natural fibres. Combining natural fibres with stronger synthetic fibres to form “hybrid” composites could nevertheless offer an optimal balance between performance and cost. This work focuses on the behaviour of flax fibres under ballistic impact in order to evaluate their potential incorporation into lightweight ballistic armour. The ballistic limit (V₅₀) of dry flax woven fabrics was studied. We observed that dry fabrics impacted by fragment simulating projectiles (FSP) exhibit a higher ballistic limit than in previous tests where flax was incorporated as fiber reinforcement into composites with polypropylene matrix. The influence of the protection's thickness on V₅₀ was evaluated. Different kinds of woven structures were also studied and the behaviour of those fabrics under impact is briefly described.