Nanofibre material outperforms Kevlar and steel plates

Ramathasan Thevamaran, a UW–Madison assistant professor of engineering physics who led the research, said the nanofibre mats exhibit protective properties that far surpass other material systems at much lighter weight.

Thevamaran and his collaborators detailed the advance in a paper published in ACS Nano.

To create the material, Thevamaran and postdoctoral researcher Jizhe Cai mixed multi-walled carbon nanotubes with Kevlar nanofibres. The resulting nanofibre mats are said to be superior at dissipating energy from the impact of tiny projectiles moving faster than the speed of sound.

The advance lays the groundwork for carbon nanotube use in lightweight, high-performance armour materials such as bulletproof vests or in shields around spacecraft to mitigate damage from flying high-speed microdebris.

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“Nano-fibrous materials are very attractive for protective applications because nanoscale fibres have outstanding strength, toughness, and stiffness compared to macroscale fibres,” Thevamaran said in a statement. “Carbon nanotube mats have shown the best energy absorption so far, and we wanted to see if we could further improve their performance.”