Date of Award
2020
Publisher
North Dakota State University
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Awarded
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Mechanical Engineering
College
Engineering
Faculty Advisor
Ulven, Chad
Description
Shear thickening fluids have the potential to improve the effectiveness of fabric materials in body armor applications as they have shown to increase the puncture and ballistic resistance of Kevlar fabrics. However, the effect of using STFs with natural fabrics such as flax has never been studied. The rheology of STFs at varying concentrations of nanosilica dispersed in polyethylene glycol PEG was studied at different temperatures and it was found that the STFs behave as a non-Newtonian fluid in response to changes in shear rate. In this study the effectiveness on the puncture and ballistic resistance of impregnating flax fabric with STF of nanosilica in PEG were investigated. The effect of hybridization of flax and Kevlar was also investigated. The puncture and ballistic resistance of the samples treated with STFs was found to increase significantly and can be controlled by STF concentration.
Recommended Citation
Fehrenbach, Joseph Brian, "Experimental Investigation of Shear Thickening Fluid Impregnated Flax Fabric and Flax/Kevlar Hybrid Fabrics" (2020). Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. 106.
https://digitalcommons.ndsu.edu/mech-eng-applied-mechanics/106
Rights
NDSU policy 190.6.2
Rights Link
https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf
Handle Identifier
https://hdl.handle.net/10365/32282