Supple penetration resistant fabric and method of making

Abstract

A puncture, pierce, and cut resistant fabric comprised of a plurality of sheets of plates arranged in a repeating pattern. A material interconnects the plates. The fabric is twistable, bendable, and flexible. It is constructed of substances that will withstand cutting, puncture, and piercing forces encountered in medical or other environments.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application is a continuation of and claims priority of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 980,881, filed Nov. 3, 2004, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 610,748, filed Jul. 6, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,962,739, issued Nov. 8, 2005, the contents of which are both hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The fabric of this invention is primarily useful to afford excellent defense and protection against penetration forces including cutting, shearing, and slashing forces, even by jagged or serrated instruments applied at excessive force and impacts of extended duration. The inventive fabric also provides an excellent level of penetration resistance to sharp puncturing and piercing forces.[0003]The fabric is comprised of layers, in which at least one of the layers has an array of plates. The plates in an array maintain a spaced relationship with each other by mean...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014]The material substrate may be a connecting material to which the plates are affixed or attached and it may become an integral part of each of the plates in the array. The connecting material interconnects the plates so that the plates are spaced apart from each other throughout the array. The connecting material also serves the important purpose of distributing any force that impinges upon the fabric or any plate or plates in the fabric among the surrounding plates, thereby taking the entire load of the impinging force off any one plate or group of plates. This property of force distribution enhances the strength of the fabric without requiring more dense plate material, thicker plate material, additional layers of plate arrays, stronger bonding materials, or other strength enhancing properties all of which reduce flexibility, tactility, bendability, twistability, and optional stretchability and increase cost. The connecting material also adds the important property of flexibility of the plate array layer by providing a highly flexible medium between the solid plates. The flexibility is due in a large measure by the fact that the connecting material provides spacing between the plates, which is referred to in this disclosure as the gap. These voids allow bending and hinging between the plates, providing suppleness to the fabric. The connecting material is sometimes referred in this description of the inventive fabric as the continuous portion of a plate layer, while the plates themselves are sometimes referred to as the discontinuous portion of the plate layer.

[0015]The material substrate may also be a base material to which the plates are affixed or attached and it may become an integral part of each of the plates in the array. The base material interconnects the plates so that the plates are spaced apart from each other throughout the array. The base material, like the connecting material (although to a lesser degree than the connecting material), may also distribute any force that impinges upon the fabric or any plate or plates in the fabric among the surrounding plates, thereby taking the entire load of the impinging force off any one plate or group of plates. The base material, like the connecting material (although to a lesser degree than the connecting material), also provides flexibility to the fabric. The base material may also be compressible in a direction perpendicular to the sheet of the base material. This property may be desirable in certain applications such as when using the inventive fabric for cleaning, scrubbing, sanding, or other abrading purposes. In these applications, the plates are able to sink into the soft base material and avoid cracking. In other words, base materials acts like a shock absorber.

[0020]The inventive fabric can be fabricated to be worn on the body. Or, the fabric may be used to cover and protect an article or substrate such as cutting, shearing, or slashing instruments from sustaining damage to their sharp-edged surfaces or from causing damage to persons or their surrounding environment.

[0021]The inventive fabric may incorporate differing materials as may be necessary to meet the design, strength, dimensional, and other specifications for various applications. A particular feature of the inventive fabric is that while the plates themselves may be hard the connecting material may be highly flexible, bendable, twistable, and stretchable. In other words, the fabric has the property of being locally hard (that is the plates are hard), while retaining global suppleness across an expanse of the fabric due to the flexibility of the connecting material between the hard plates and the softness and flexibility of the base material. The inventive fabric may even exhibit relative softness and conformance to the body or article over which it is draped. The addition of a suitable liquid barrier layer or treatment of the fabric with a liquid resistant substance resists migration of fluids through the fabric.

Problems solved by technology

This property of force distribution enhances the strength of the fabric without requiring more dense plate material, thicker plate material, additional layers of plate arrays, stronger bonding materials, or other strength enhancing properties all of which reduce flexibility, tactility, bendability, twistability, and optional stretchability and increase cost.

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