A study on energy dissipation of aramid composite reinforced with a new shear thickening gel (n-STG)/PVA polymer matrix

In this article, a new shear thickening gel (n-STG)/Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) polymer matrix-reinforced interlayers of Kevlar fabrics are used. Rheology and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMTA) tests were used to characterize the shear-thickening properties of n-STG. SEM images showed that the fabric’s surface was fully covered with n-STG after the STG treatment. Two layers of Kevlar fabrics with an area density of 600 g/m 2 (total = 1200 g/m 2 ) are compared to the six levels of the Kevlar fabrics with an area density of 200 g/m 2 . The puncture resistance of n-STG/Kevlar 200 composite is the highest. The pull-out test was performed to investigate the inter-yarn friction. In low-velocity impact test, n-STG/Kevlar absorbs about 90.0% of the impact energies. The energy-balance model very well matches the experimental results. Finally, the performance of the samples was examined in response to changing the impact energy, weight of n-STG, and number of layers.