anyone had any experience with this fabric???It looks to be stronger than carbon, and better than kevlar, and its reasonalby cheap, there’s gotta be some kind of catch maybe???
Deteriorates over time, or so i’ve read, a company made armor for some armed forces and after 3 or 4 years a wearer of one was shot, and a non-armor-piercing round penetrated the armor. This caused backlash and it was found that it’s strength properties deteriorate.
interesting…are the results the same when placed in a composite??? Is this due to UV exposure? How about spectra fabric?
Most ballistic armor is covered, so UV issues are not there. I don’t know much about Zylon though.
Now, spectra is the way to go!!! Everyone is going for that stuff 
Dyneema and M5 are other ballistic choices. I don’t know much about Dyneema, and M5 seems quite new, but on the same order as Spectra.
Planning on making some armor for cars?
Or just something besides carbon/kevlar for shatter resistance?
shatter resistance yes, where does one go about buying spectra or those other materials? Cost? comparative strength? As well, stiffness and wet-out abilitiy
Honeywell is the maker of Spectra, they should have a list of distro’s for ya. I have only seen it in thermoplastic form though, so it is commonly mixed with PE. Many companies weave it, like braider.com (A&P Braiding), Bally Ribbon Mills (ballyribbon.com i think), phoenixx TCP might as well.
wow, that is straight up confusing…so what is PE??? what are spectra’s qualities comparable to? is this weaving only for sleaves?? I definitly didn’t find anything about it on the A&P site…
Zylon is better known as PBO. One of the commercial success of PBO is in sailing racing boats in replacemetn of Rod. Altough with spectra cover.
Sorry.
PE is Polyethylene, which like polypropylene(PP), polyetheretherketone(PEEK), etc, are thermoplastics. you heat them up, shape, and cool and it retains the shape. In composites, each layer binds with each other, just like a standard thermoset epoxy, however, you can remold thermoplastics again and again.
Some stuff I am dealing with now, the PEEK has a work temp of 750deg f though…no home cookin’ there!
I am not that sure about spectra, other than it DOES come in fabric from somewhere, and it’s weaveable in various forms (braids, tapes, 3D stitched preforms)…but I don’t know exactly where. There is also a shortage from what I hear from A&P the other day.
As for Spectra’s data facts…NO idea. Honeywell’s website SUCKS, and I really don’t think I need to know the specs for it (I’m manuf. not design of material), so I don’t worry about it I know it is a popular ballistics material, and i think it’s a plastic of sorts.
I would say, stick with kevlar. It is cheap, and effective for what it is.