Glass fibers for impact protection systems. A review

Abstract

This paper is a review about glass fiber fabrics used for impact protection. The authors comment on types of fabrics, tests done for pointing out the impact resistance. Many of applications refer to ballistic protection but, as one may notice, experimental studies in open literature are disperse from the point of view of parameter ranges. Many articles on the subject do not have details on materials (fabrics and adhesives) used to manufacture the protection samples and on technology for obtaining the final system of protection. Few tests are done according to national, international or military standards because of difficulties in sample manufacturing at industrial scale or the costs related to sample producing. This review could be useful for the start of a research on ballistic panels based on or including glass fiber fabrics, for making the researchers familiar to their particular failure mechanisms.