What if you did this to ceramic? Rifle resistant?

Don't know if this post is still active. If it is, quick question. Would UHMWPE work as an alternative to the Kevlar? I'm a huge fan of STF, so that would of course stay, but for more rigid plates would UHMWPE work better? If so, about what thickness to do rifles rounds? Thanks! 

PE fabric is better than kevlar. It would be way too thick to stop rifles, you must combine PE fab with porcelain ceramic. in fact PE fab is a bit expensive compared to fiber glass which can make a pistol/shotgun plate for around $40. It is so cheap to make armor dont buy the mainstream materials if you dont need to.

How thick are the individual kevlar sheets and how thick is the majority of the finished armor?

Could one hide this under clothing? How much does it weigh per square foot?

Do you stitch the 10 layers of Kevlar together before or after you apply the sttf.

so do you sow the 10 layers of Kevlar before or after soaking them 

This is a wonderful project!  But I do have one concern.  While kevlar is not harmed by most organic solvents and the like, DuPont's Kevlar Technical Guide says that it doesn't handle ethylene glycol very well, and what I assume was PEG (listed as "brake fluid") caused moderate weakening of kevlar fibers after 100 hours at 235 degrees  fahrenheit.  This makes me worry that, at lower temperatures, over months or longer, it might mess it up.  Maybe try fiberglass instead?

I would like to ask a question. I'm a french student and I would like to find PEG 200 which is nearly impossible to find in my country. Could you tell me if you know any US websites where I can order some ? Because the only ones that I' ve found myself was websites that propose me to order industrial or laboratory quantity.

By the way, I've heard that recent researchs that are done on kevlar vest augmented with liquid use colloïdal silica in PEG 200 instead of calcium. Is calcium a easier material to use than silica ? Is silica a better material to make the fluid more resistant ?

In any case, congratulation and thank you for you tutorial, it is very cool.

Thanks for your answer, but have you heard about the garrison bespoke suit, which is effectively bullet proof and uses carbon nanotube instead of kevlar.

I am personally trying to build a discreet knife stab proof vest, and i thought that the best way was to use carbon nanotube and STF.

So I started looking online for some guidance and materials. I found your project and thought that now I only need carbon nanotubes sheet.

So I found that nanocomp.com were selling custom size one. But when I looked at the specifics i saw that the specific strength was only 100 MPa when kevlar fiber are around 3 GPa.

Does that mean that I cant use it for ballistic protection or that I am missing something ?

it is actually nanocomptech.com

Its because the CNT sheet isnt woven its just disordered, and 2 the CNT are short 1cm.  Kevlar is still the material of choice.

I stumbled upon another STF while making a desalination filter.  This one has graphene and diatoms which should be orders of magnitude better than the previous I am still focused on other things though so it will be some time. 

I have experimented with MWCNT in the stf and it always makes it shear thinning so it wont work. 

Just give me some time and I might have something amazing, the simple fact is when developing new things you find 1,000's of ways to not make them. 

well thanks for the answer and Good Luck in your research.

Keep posting your updates, i will always be interested.

Hi 

I'm not an expert but i don't understand why a carbon nanotube sheet  (like the miralon from nanocomp) would be weaker than à kevlar sheet when i've read that carbon nanotube are stronger than diamond.

Could you explain me your thinking. Tanks 

very simple the CNT are at most a few cm long whereas the kevlar fibers can be meters in length. 

how did you oxidized your activated carbon (regular carbon for filters?

can you tell me more about the practicality of making that stuff?  thanks. 

It's not nearly as practical as using precipitated calcium carbonate or silica in PEG 400. I am focused on energy storage and utilization right now. I will be back at this once I am there. It just has to wait for now sorry.

Have you tried silicon dioxide? It's also shear thickening but I don't know how it will compare to calcium carbonate. Some researchers at the University of Delaware developed it. They used a mix of ethanol and ethylene glycol to dissolve the silicon dioxide, soaked nylon, and it was effective. I forget what the ethanol was for. They did some stab tests, arrow tests, and some unspecified-weight 800fps pellet. The old webpage that described it is gone unfortunately but there are a few other press-release style pages on UD's site. It's also patented but for DIY projects nobody is going to care.

If you're looking for solid plates for backing try UHMWPE. You can get solid blocks of it for pretty cheap. The solid blocks aren't as bullet resistant as the woven fiber but they're a heck of a lot cheaper.

Yah I know for diy no one cares, however I will be making and selling power armor someday so I need all unprotected tech.   

Yes UHMWPE is the best bulk material, I have a rifle proof shield I will show soon as soon as I get some footage vs 7mm mag ideally it would be backed by bulk uhmwpe but I can't afford any right now.  

As for the soft armor, unidirectional uhmwpe is the best pound per pound bullet resistant material, but I am thinking some memory foam backer is good for this application to reduce blunt trama.

Thanks for the suggestions!

And the ethanol was simply to dilute the STF so it can be painted on.

I just glanced at this when it first came out. Decided to look it up again to see if any progress was made...I see it turned out great...only needs a video demonstration...you know, for science. :) and zombies, lots of zombies...to see if it will stand real applications...with a cool soundtrack, some skrillex maybe...

Yah JD I been meaning to get back to it and do a video shoot, I am hanging out with my old man later in the week. I will shoot some with his 1911 and get a video of it in action.  10 layers stopping a .45 is very impressive.

As per request, video for proof, this is one of the shoulder pieces being blasted!

this is cool, the mention of glycol and carbonate is suppose to make the kevlar knifeproof though, right? The memory foam idea, I thought about it yesterday...great minds think the same.

yah this is also stab/arrow proof, i will get some pictures up today and add that thanks for reminding me

Oh I get you now, it also makes it much more effective at stopping bullets as when the shear thickening fluid locks up it makes all the threads act together as one instead of only the contacted threads in a normal kevlar vest.  In practice 10 layers of STF impregnated kevlar have the same bullet stopping capabilities as 30 layers of non STF impregnated kevlar.