Development of Wood-Ash/Resin Polymer Matrix Composite for Body Armour Application

This research work formulated and developed a polymer matrix composite (PMC) for body armour application by adopting hand lay-up processing method in producing the epoxy resin-wood ash composite. The usual waste from wood after combustion, wood ash, was used as the additive in the development of the PMC. Chemical composition of the prepared wood ash was determined using X-ray florescence spectrometry. The mechanical properties of the developed PMC was evaluated and discovered to have been enhanced through the inclusion of the wood ash particles. 2.3% inclusion of wood ash resulted in the tensile strength value of 104 N/mm2against 86 N/mm2 for neat reinforced resin. The impact strength of the PMC increased from 50 J/mm2 (without wood ash) to 112 J/mm2 while 25.4 HRF was recorded for the hardness value of the PMC with wood ash against 23.4 HRF for the neat reinforced PMC. The microscopic analysis also revealed that the wood ash particles were uniformly distributed in the matrix without indication of segregation. When subjected to ballistic tests, the developed PMC successfully arrested the 9 x 19 mm ammunitions after perforating some layers of the sandwiched sample. The research is therefore applicable for the protection of torso.