The influences of aramid fibre and its compound with ceramic on shielding performance of stuffed layer

Abstract Four kinds of aramid fibre and three compound modes of aramid with ceramic fibre were studied by hypervelocity impact tests respectively to probe the fabric layer with higher performance in space debris shield configuration. The aramid fibres include the Aramid-II manufactured in America, the Aramid-II, the Aramid-III and the PBO manufactured in China. Based on the above test results, the Aramid-III was chosen to compound with the basalt. The compound modes include hybrid weaving, affixing the Aramid-III and basalt fabric layers with the glue, and sewing them with the aramid thread. The configurations are impacted by the 5 mm-diameter Al projectile with the velocities of 4.5 km/s to 5.0 km/s. The test results show that the fabric layer containing Aramid-III fabric has equivalent shielding performance with the PBO fabric, and they are better than the other two stuffed layers containing Aramid-II fabric respectively under the equivalent areal density. The performance of stuffed layer is influenced by the adhesion degree of basalt and Aramid-III fibre. The three compound modes all improve the fabric adhesion degree, however, the over adhesion makes against dissipating the kinetic energy of debris cloud, which causes the performance to degrade.