Performance of natural curaua fiber-reinforced polyester composites under 7.62Â mm bullet impact as a stand-alone ballistic armor

A multilayered armor system (MAS) is intended to personal protection against high kinetic energy ammunition. MAS layers are composed of materials such as a front ceramic and a back composite that must show both high impact resistance and low weight, usually conflicting characteristics. Synthetic fiber fabrics, such as Kevlar™ and Dyneema™, are the favorite materials to back the front ceramic, due to their high strength, high modulus and relatively low weight. Recently, composites reinforced with natural fibers have been considered as MAS second layer owing to their good performance associated with other advantages as being cheaper and environmentally friendly. Among the natural fibers, those extracted from the leaves of the Ananas erectifolius plant, known as curaua, stand out due to its exceptional high strength and high modulus. Thus, the objective of the present work is to evaluate the performance of curaua fiber-reinforced polyester composites subjected to ballistic impact of high energy 7.62 mm ammunition. Composites reinforced with 0, 10, 20 and 30 vol.% of curaua fibers were produced and stand-alone tested as armor target to evaluate the absorbed energy. Analysis of variance (Anova) and Tukey's honest significant difference test (HSD) made it possible to compare the results to Kevlar™ laminates. Among the tested materials, the 30 vol.% fiber composites were found to be the best alternative to Kevlar™.