Influence of pre-tension on ballistic impact performance of multi-layer Kevlar 49 woven fabrics for gas turbine engine containment systems

In this paper, ballistic impact tests on wrapped multi-layer Kevlar 49 woven fabric systems were carried out with a flat blade projectile to investigate the impact response during a fan blade out event. The influences of the number of Kevlar layers and pre-tension were discussed particularly. Test results were used to analyze failure modes and energy absorption characteristics of multi-ply Kevlar fabrics. Results show that there are two kinds of impact damage for fabrics: global deformation mainly involving stretching of yarns in the impact region and fabric wrinkle from both sides to the impact zone, and local damage characterized by yarn fracture, yarn pull-out, and yarn unraveling. The energy absorption capability of Kevlar 49 woven fabrics improves with the number of fabric layers. The energy absorbed by multi-layer fabrics increases slightly at the beginning and then decreases substantially with pre-tension. The work in this paper can provide guidance for designing light-weight multi-layer fabrics containment systems.