Blast and fragment resistant Textile

The goal aimed at by the current project is the improvement of textile and textile-composite based lightweight blast protection for military personnel and land, air and sea vehicles. Given the broad spectrum of possible improvements, this project will focus on a novel approach for material testing against the explosion threat.
In a first step, the novel combined blast and fragment impact test setup will be optimized for textile sample testing.
In a second step a selection of 2 soft flexible and 2 soft rigid materials will be selected from SIOEN’s range of commercially available products.
The same materials will in a third step be tested under combined fragment and blast loading, using the same FSP calibers and a range of blast pressure levels and time intervals between fragment and blast wave arrival time on target.
Two of the best performing materials will be modelled, based on both a physics-based and yarn-level approach, in a fourth step.

The validated numerical models will be used to design and propose a new composition with the aim of obtaining a 10% increased blast protection level. Finally, this new composition will be manufactured and tested to close the R&D loop.

The triple helix concept is materialized through the collaboration between the 3 consortium members combining industry, research institution and Defence actors and their combined existing experience and knowledge: SIOEN’s material architecture designs and manufacturing processes (already used by Defences worldwide), the novel experimental testing infrastructure from the RMA, and the novel simulation tools from UGent will lead to optimized solutions for both textile-based personal and vehicle blast and fragment protection.

This project is financed by the Belgian Defense Research Programmme (DEFRA) under contract n° 23DEFRA004.