Kevlar KM2 is a synthetic para-aramid fiber produced by DuPont. The fiber is an evolution of the original Kevlar fiber. The following quotes summarize Kevlar KM2's properties.
"DuPont created Kevlar KM2 to achieve the performance goals defined by casualty reduction testing for the United States Department of Defense Department of Defense. Today it is used extensively for fragmentation protection in the U.S. military. Helmets and vests made with Kevlar KM2 provide enhanced bullet and fragmentation resistance while remaining comfortable and breathable in the most inhospitable climates.
Excellent thermal stability at temperature extremes, water repellency, chemical stability and resistance to petroleum products have made Kevlar KM2 an indispensable asset to the military personnel who use it every day." [1]
"Kevlar KM2 fiber is a transversely isotropic material. Its tensile stress–strain response in the axial direction is linear and elastic until failure. However, the overall deformation in the transverse directions is nonlinear and nonelastic, although it can be treated linearly and elastically in infinitesimal strain range. For a linear, elastic, and transversely isotropic material, five material constants are needed to describe its stress–strain response." [2]
Anisotropy is the structural property of non-uniformity in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. An anisotropic object or pattern has properties that differ according to direction of measurement. For example, many materials exhibit very different physical or mechanical properties when measured along different axes, e.g. absorbance, refractive index, conductivity, and tensile strength.
Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires. It is typically spun into ropes or fabric sheets that can be used as such, or as an ingredient in composite material components.
Rheology is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a fluid state but also as "soft solids" or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an applied force. Rheology is the branch of physics that deals with the deformation and flow of materials, both solids and liquids.
A composite material is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or physical properties and are merged to create a material with properties unlike the individual elements. Within the finished structure, the individual elements remain separate and distinct, distinguishing composites from mixtures and solid solutions. Composite materials with more than one distinct layer are called composite laminates.
Young's modulus is a mechanical property of solid materials that measures the tensile or compressive stiffness when the force is applied lengthwise. It is the modulus of elasticity for tension or axial compression. Young's modulus is defined as the ratio of the stress applied to the object and the resulting axial strain in the linear elastic region of the material.
In materials science and solid mechanics, Poisson's ratio is a measure of the Poisson effect, the deformation of a material in directions perpendicular to the specific direction of loading. The value of Poisson's ratio is the negative of the ratio of transverse strain to axial strain. For small values of these changes, ν is the amount of transversal elongation divided by the amount of axial compression. Most materials have Poisson's ratio values ranging between 0.0 and 0.5. For soft materials, such as rubber, where the bulk modulus is much higher than the shear modulus, Poisson's ratio is near 0.5. For open-cell polymer foams, Poisson's ratio is near zero, since the cells tend to collapse in compression. Many typical solids have Poisson's ratios in the range of 0.2 to 0.3. The ratio is named after the French mathematician and physicist Siméon Poisson.
In physics and materials science, elasticity is the ability of a body to resist a distorting influence and to return to its original size and shape when that influence or force is removed. Solid objects will deform when adequate loads are applied to them; if the material is elastic, the object will return to its initial shape and size after removal. This is in contrast to plasticity, in which the object fails to do so and instead remains in its deformed state.
Aramid fibers, short for aromatic polyamide, are a class of heat-resistant and strong synthetic fibers. They are used in aerospace and military applications, for ballistic-rated body armor fabric and ballistic composites, in marine cordage, marine hull reinforcement, as an asbestos substitute, and in various lightweight consumer items ranging from phone cases to tennis rackets.
The field of strength of materials typically refers to various methods of calculating the stresses and strains in structural members, such as beams, columns, and shafts. The methods employed to predict the response of a structure under loading and its susceptibility to various failure modes takes into account the properties of the materials such as its yield strength, ultimate strength, Young's modulus, and Poisson's ratio. In addition, the mechanical element's macroscopic properties such as its length, width, thickness, boundary constraints and abrupt changes in geometry such as holes are considered.
An elastic modulus is the unit of measurement of an object's or substance's resistance to being deformed elastically when a stress is applied to it.
Solid mechanics is the branch of continuum mechanics that studies the behavior of solid materials, especially their motion and deformation under the action of forces, temperature changes, phase changes, and other external or internal agents.
Nomex is a trademarked term for an inherently flame-resistant fabric with meta-aramid chemistry widely used for industrial applications and fire protection equipment. It was developed in the early 1960s by DuPont and first marketed in 1967.
In physics and engineering, a constitutive equation or constitutive relation is a relation between two or more physical quantities that is specific to a material or substance or field, and approximates its response to external stimuli, usually as applied fields or forces. They are combined with other equations governing physical laws to solve physical problems; for example in fluid mechanics the flow of a fluid in a pipe, in solid state physics the response of a crystal to an electric field, or in structural analysis, the connection between applied stresses or loads to strains or deformations.
In seismology and other areas involving elastic waves, S waves, secondary waves, or shear waves are a type of elastic wave and are one of the two main types of elastic body waves, so named because they move through the body of an object, unlike surface waves.
Sailcloth is cloth used to make sails. It can be made of a variety of materials, including natural fibers such as flax, hemp, or cotton in various forms of sail canvas, and synthetic fibers such as nylon, polyester, aramids, and carbon fibers in various woven, spun, and molded textiles.
Micromechanics is the analysis of heterogeneous materials including of composite, and anisotropic and orthotropic materials on the level of the individual constituents that constitute them and their interactions.
In mechanics, the flexural modulus or bending modulus is an intensive property that is computed as the ratio of stress to strain in flexural deformation, or the tendency for a material to resist bending. It is determined from the slope of a stress-strain curve produced by a flexural test, and uses units of force per area. The flexural modulus defined using the 2-point (cantilever) and 3-point bend tests assumes a linear stress strain response.
Material failure theory is an interdisciplinary field of materials science and solid mechanics which attempts to predict the conditions under which solid materials fail under the action of external loads. The failure of a material is usually classified into brittle failure (fracture) or ductile failure (yield). Depending on the conditions most materials can fail in a brittle or ductile manner or both. However, for most practical situations, a material may be classified as either brittle or ductile.
In materials science, a composite laminate is an assembly of layers of fibrous composite materials which can be joined to provide required engineering properties, including in-plane stiffness, bending stiffness, strength, and coefficient of thermal expansion.
cadec-online.com was a multilingual web application that performs analysis of composite materials and is used primarily for teaching, especially within the disciplines of aerospace engineering, materials science, naval engineering, mechanical engineering, and civil engineering. Users navigate the application through a tree view which structures the component chapters. cadec-online is an engineering cloud application. It uses the LaTeX library to render equations and symbols, then Sprites to optimize the delivery of images to the page. As of 2021, the application is no longer available.