Enhancing the performance of Cordura and ballistic nylon using polyurethane treatment for outer shell of bulletproof vest

The outer shell of the bulletproof fabric is one of the important parts that help the shield in performing its function of protection in the best way. In this paper, there are two types of high-performance materials used as the outer shell and finished with knife coating with fluorocarbon and polyurethane coating to improve the performance of the two materials. Five laboratory tests were conducted for both materials to show their functional performance efficiency, the ballistic test was applied using two types of calibers 7.62x54MSC and 7.62x54API. A scanning electron microscope was conducted to show the coating effect on samples. Paired sample T-tests were used to show the differences between variables. An improvement was shown in the performance for both ballistic nylon and Cordura after treatment. Finally cordura is more durable, as it recorded the highest value in Puncture test and less damaged, while ballistic nylon recorded the highest value in the abrasion resistance after the same treatment.