New Shear Thickening Fluid (STF) enables flexible, comfortable armor

August 13, 2006 Since warfare began, developing armor has been a balance between the need for protection and the need for comfort, flexibility and light weight. A new nanotechnology known as Shear Thickening Fluid (STF) created by scientists at ARL and UDTC looks set to provide the next generation of armor. STF has the ability to make ballistic fabrics highly resistant to penetration when impacted by a spike, knife or bullet without compromising their weight, comfort or flexibility. The potential applications of STF include a wide range of products such as body armor, vehicle armor, helmets, gloves and bomb blankets to protect soldiers and law enforcement officials plus myriad industrial safety applications all thr way through to protective clothing for motorcyclists. When the first products become available later this year, soldiers can expect to be much safer as the liquid body armor can be used in sleeves and pants, which are not usually protected by ballistic vests because they must stay flexible.

PDF) Stab resistance of shear thickening fluid (STF)-kevlar composites for body armor applications

Polymers, Free Full-Text

Application of shear thickening fluids in material development - ScienceDirect

Frontiers Use of shear thickening fluids in sport protection applications: a review

Study of dynamic compressive responses of ultra‐high molecular weight polyethylene felt impregnated with shear thickening fluid - Nayak - 2021 - Polymer Composites - Wiley Online Library

Study of dynamic compressive responses of ultra‐high molecular weight polyethylene felt impregnated with shear thickening fluid - Nayak - 2021 - Polymer Composites - Wiley Online Library

Incorporation of shear thickening fluid effects into computational modelling of woven fabrics subjected to impact loading: A review - Dakshitha Weerasinghe, Damith Mohotti, Jeremy Anderson, 2020

Full article: Soft body armour

Could a bullet resistant armor be made that is flexible and/or soft and can protect against rifle rounds? - Quora

An SPH model to simulate the dynamic behavior of shear thickening fluids - Ozgen - 2019 - Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds - Wiley Online Library

Stab Resistance of Shear Thickening Fluid Treated High-Performance Textiles

Schematic of shear thickening fluid.

The Role of Shear-Thickening Fluids (STFs) in Ballistic and Stab-Resistance Improvement of Flexible Armor

Liquid Body Armour