Auxetic Fabric Technology Development for Military Protective Clothing

The United States Navy has identified the need to investigate the use of auxetic fabric for military personnel protective clothing including jackets, shirts, pants, helmets, boots, gloves, and even body armor. Auxetic fabric technology has a unique feature in that it exhibits a negative Poisson"s ratio effect when subjected to an axial load. Auxetic fabric consists of an elastomeric core yarn, which is helically wrapped with a high stiffness fiber. In Phase I, Touchstone and its partners, (The Ohio State University and Advanced Fabric Technologies) will produce variations of the auxetic fabric, Xtegra, characterize the fabrics with both static and dynamic tensile loadings and 3D Digital Image Correlation, and begin to construct both material and numerical models for auxetics and their products (i.e., protective clothing). Touchstone"s team is uniquely positioned to complete the proposed work as AFT has exclusive rights to market and manufacture auxetic fabrics in North America. Touchstone and OSU are providing the research and development and engineering resources required to successfully develop auxetic for military applications.