Development of sansevieria trifasciata/natural rubber composites for a soft body armor application

Body armor is an indispensable material in the military and defense. The development of body armor nowadays has shifted to lower-cost material with comparable ballistic properties. This research studied the potential of sansevieria trifasciata (ST) fiber as a reinforcement in soft body armor composite. The ST fiber was treated with various NaOH concentrations to achieve the highest tensile strength. The result showed that the highest ST fiber strength was achieved at 1.2GPa by treating the fiber with 1 wt% NaOH solution. The rebound resilience properties of the natural rubber (NR) matrix were optimized by varying the accelerator and carbon black content and were tested according to ISO 4662. The optimum energy absorption of the NR matrix was obtained using 0.4 part per hundred rubber (phr) accelerator and 30 phr carbon black. The ballistic performance of ST/NR composites was evaluated through a simulation using LS-DYNA software. The ballistic simulation revealed that the minimum thickness of ST/NR composite was 15mm to stop a bullet with a velocity of 436m/s. The results of this study indicated that ST/NR green composite was a promising candidate for a soft body armor application.