EP0769128B1 - Protective clothing, in particular ballistic-protection clothing for women - Google Patents

Abstract

PCT No. PCT/EP95/02117 Sec. 371 Date Jan. 30, 1997 Sec. 102(e) Date Jan. 30, 1997 PCT Filed Jun. 3, 1995 PCT Pub. No. WO96/01405 PCT Pub. Date Jan. 18, 1996Protective clothing comprising one protective layer or a plurality of protective layers superimposed on and optionally joined to one another may contain textile flat structures made from antiballistically acting fibers, wherein the protective layers contain contoured shapes for fitting to body shapes imparted by a molding process that is conducted without the concurrent use of a resin. The protective clothing may also contain one or more cover layers. Bulges are formed in the protective layer and optionally the cover layers by the molding process in order to produce a better fit, particularly in the bust region. Protective clothing manufactured in this way offers an agreeable degree of comfort and is particularly intended for female police, military and other security personnel.

Description

The invention relates to protective clothing, especially antiballistic protective clothing for women, consisting of cover layers and / or one or more protective layers arranged one above the other and possibly connected to one another, these protective layers consisting of textile fabrics made of antiballistically active fibers.

Bullet and splinter-resistant protective clothing, especially bullet and splinter-resistant vests, have recently become the standard equipment of the military, police and other security forces in many countries. Since women are increasingly used in these areas, it is necessary that these protective clothing be adapted to female body shapes. The conventional protective clothing designed for men to wear is problematic for women and only possible with a considerable loss in comfort. This low level of comfort of the protective vests developed for men proves to be extremely hindering, especially when used in conjunction with high physical loads.

The previous solutions to problems are sometimes very expensive and, moreover, often do not offer the necessary comfort. For example, in US-A 4 183 097 and GB-A 2 231 481 describes special cutting techniques for antiballistic women's clothing. In addition to increased costs for the production of protective clothing and an often reduced antiballistic effect, these techniques have the disadvantage that the protective vests mentioned here are not adequately adapted to female body shapes.

Another method of working so far has been cutting out the breast part from antiballistic layers and sewing in a correspondingly prefabricated breast part. In addition to the extremely high cost, this method also does not offer a satisfactory solution, since the seams are partially applied and the antiballistic effect on seams is also deteriorated.

Furthermore, a special chest protector that can be worn under a vest has been developed and described in US Pat. No. 5,020,157. Although additional protection of the breast is achieved here, the wearing comfort remains unsatisfactory, since this breast protection is usually worn under a conventional vest, that is to say under a vest which does not contain any antiballistic layers tailored to the female body shape.

Finally, US Pat. No. 4,578,821 describes protective clothing in which a special breast shape for women can be placed on a carrier material. A conventional vest can be used as the carrier material, for example. Here, too, no solution is offered which offers sufficient wearing comfort because the protective clothing is not adequately adapted to the female body shape as a whole.

Therefore, the task was to develop protective clothing, especially antiballistic protective clothing for women, which is well adapted to the body shapes and thus a high Offers comfort without loss of protection and which can also be produced very inexpensively.

Surprisingly, it has now been found that this object can be achieved in a particularly advantageous manner if the deformations required for adaptation to the body shapes, such as for example the shaping of the bust part in protective clothing for women, are carried out by means of a molding process. In addition to the possibility of being able to produce protective clothing, especially antiballistic protective clothing for women inexpensively without loss of protective effect in this way, the task of improving the wearing comfort due to protective clothing which is well adapted to the body shapes, especially the bust part which is well adapted to the female body shapes, is particularly important solved advantageously.

Thermal deformations of antiballistic packages have already been described. DE-A 3 426 458 mentions this possibility for a laminate which is formed from aramid fiber fabrics and a high proportion of polymeric binders such as polyethylene, polyvinyl resins and others. contains. The temperatures proposed here are matched to the resins used. Although the possibility of designing the deformation of the laminates reinforced with resins in such a way that adaptation to the body shapes is achieved is mentioned on the other hand, in the same publication, however, it is proposed to make incisions for the production of biaxially curved laminate packages, which means a method of operation analogous to the conventional dart technique is recommended.

A similar technique, which also works with laminates and with low temperatures adapted to the resins used, is also known from the production of antiballistic helmets. An example of this is AT-B 372 524.

The processes described so far work with laminates. The low temperatures matched to the resins used in the previous methods for producing antiballistic protective clothing only allow deformation of textile fabrics made of, for example, aramid fibers in the laminate composite. In the interest of good wearing comfort, however, it is desirable to use non-laminated fabrics in antiballistic protective clothing, and if this protective clothing is intended for women, these textile fabrics are permanently deformed, for example in the form of individual fabrics or fabric packages without the use of a resin got to.

For antiballistic protective clothing, especially for bullet and splinter-resistant vests, aramid fibers, which are also known as aromatic polyamide fibers, are often used in the protective layers. Such fibers are commercially available, for example, under the brand name Twaron ^R. Aramid fibers are polyamide fibers that are at least partially made up of aromatic compounds. When the polyamides are formed, for example by polycondensation of an aromatic amine with an aromatic acid or its chlorides, both the acid component and the amine component can consist wholly or partly of aromatic compounds. Aramid fibers are to be understood in the context of the invention as fibers whose main part is composed of aromatic compounds which form amides.

In addition to aramid fibers, polyolefin fibers, especially polyethylene fibers produced by the gel spinning process, are also used for antiballistic protective clothing. These are also suitable for producing the antiballistic protective clothing according to the invention. The same applies to other antiballistically effective fibers, such as so-called antiballistic nylon.

Antiballistically effective materials are to be understood as those which resist the penetration of projectiles, fragments etc. and slow down their speed when they hit these materials.

Fabrics made from aramid fibers are often used to form the antiballistically effective protective layers. These fibers are preferably processed into fabrics as filament yarns, but the use of spun yarns is also possible. Filament yarns, however, achieve higher strength and a better antiballistic effect.

Protective layers in antiballistically effective clothing are understood to mean the layers which contain antiballistically effective materials in the abovementioned sense. These protective layers in antiballistic clothing are very often woven from aramid fibers.

Antiballistic protective clothing is therefore clothing that provides effective protection of the body against the penetration of projectiles, fragments, fragments of explosive devices, etc.

If filament yarns are used to manufacture fabrics, they are used in titers of 400 - 3400 dtex. The filament titer is preferably less than 1.7 dtex.

The yarns can be processed into fabrics on all machines commonly used in weaving technology. Fabric weaving in plain weave is preferred, but other weaves, such as a Panama weave, are also possible. The thread numbers to be used depend on the titer of the yarn and the desired fabric density. The following information for thread counts for the production of fabrics in plain weave from aramid fibers for antiballistic protective layers are to be regarded as examples: Yarn titer Number of threads per 10 cm Tissue weight dtex in chain u. Shot g / m ² 420 80-110 65-100 840 90-110 175-185 120-130 210-220 930 105-115 200-220 1 100 85-120 190-280 1 260 75-100 190-250 100-110 250-280 1,680 65-80 220-260 3 360 40-50 300-460

However, the invention is not intended to be restricted to the use of fabrics for the protective layers. In the same way, other flat structures such as foils, scrims, nonwovens or knitted fabrics can also be used. The term textile fabric is used here for fabrics made from fiber materials. These include fabrics, knitwear, nonwovens, scrims, etc. Fabrics are preferred for the production of the protective clothing according to the invention.

For the use of protective vests in the military and police sector, good antiballistic effectiveness is required, even when wet. This effectiveness usually diminishes somewhat if, for example, water is deposited between the individual layers of aramid fiber. In order to ensure good antiballistic effectiveness even when wet or after water accumulation, it is common in many cases to subject fabrics made of aramid fibers to water-repellent finishing, often referred to as hydrophobing, before they are further processed into bulletproof or splinter-resistant vests. Finishing agents based on fluorocarbon polymers are preferably used for this purpose. The processes for this are known in the textile finishing industry.

This equipment can possibly be omitted for bulletproof vests for police use, because the packages of antiballistic layers are usually welded between PVC films and are thus sealed watertight.

A bust is formed in the fabrics provided for the antiballistic protective layers, especially in fabrics made of aramid fibers, using a molding process. Molding processes and the corresponding machines are known in the bodice industry. A molding process which is particularly suitable for the production of protective layers for antiballistically effective protective clothing is described in the patent application P 44 23 194.6, which was filed with the German Patent Office at the same time. The process described there provides for aramid surface structures at temperatures of 180-300 ° C at a machine pressure of 4-8 bar (400-800 kPa).

According to the current state of the art, flat structures made of thermoplastic materials are particularly suitable for molding. Aramid fibers, which are preferred for antiballistic protective clothing, are not considered to be thermoplastics because they have no defined melting and softening points and decompose before melting. It was therefore surprising that it was possible to use a molding process to deform flat materials from these fibers and in this way to create a possibility of adapting the protective clothing to be made from such materials in a particularly favorable manner to the body shapes, particularly the female body shapes to be able to. With the process described in the patent application P 44 23 194.6, which was filed with the German Patent Office at the same time, it is possible to deform fabrics made of aramid fibers using a molding process in such a way that a permanent new shape is achieved and, for example, the bust part of the antiballistic layers for women's protective clothing is irreversibly shaped can.

The antiballistic protective layers show no loss of antiballistic effectiveness after the shaping of a bust part at the locations deformed by means of a molding process, as the bombardment tests shown below show.

In these bombardment tests, the material to be tested was bombarded in several layers one above the other. The number of layers was chosen so that it corresponds to the conditions as they exist in the protective vest. The bombardment was carried out with 9 mm para-ammunition from a distance of 10 m at a bombardment angle of 90 °. The antiballistic effect was tested on the one hand by detecting a possible bullet, on the other hand by examining the change in a plasticine mass behind the material to be bombarded. For this purpose, the depth of impression of the projectile in the plasticine mass was determined, with which an approximate measure for the energy effect of a projectile on the human body in the event of a bombardment was to be established. Depending on the specification, the police departments allow up to 44 mm as a depth of penetration into the plasticine mass.

The bombardment tests were carried out on fabrics made of aramid fibers, on which a bust part had previously been formed by means of the molding process described in patent application P 44 23 194.6, which was filed with the German Patent Office at the same time. The bombardment took place at the shaped places. In all the tests carried out, no bullet was found at the locations formed by molding. The penetration depth in plasticine was between 26 and 42 mm and thus below the permissible maximum limit.

The anti-ballistic protective layers deformed by molding are preferably used for bulletproof vests for women. For this, between 20 and 30 of these layers are so placed on top of each other so that the molded bust parts lie exactly on top of each other. Such a vest often consists of 28 protective layers. After the shaping has been introduced, these are consolidated with one another by means of a cross-stitched seam, each of the two cross-stitched seams being approximately 10 cm long. This cross stitching is attached below the molded bust. A sewing thread, for example made of aramid fiber, is used for quilting. The antiballistic package thus formed is then welded into a prefabricated cover made of PVC film with a bust part also molded by molding to produce a bulletproof vest. The shaping of the PVC cover takes place in such a way that the bust part is shaped according to the shape of the antiballistic protective layers in a double-layered, already welded on one edge and still open on three edges by means of molding. The antiballistic package is inserted into this case, which then has a bust part on both the front and the back, and the edges that are still open are welded watertight. The package, which is welded into PVC film, is then introduced, for example, into a colored or printed cotton or cotton-polyester fabric which is adapted to the shape of the antiballistic package. In the interest of easy removal of the antiballistic package, for example when cleaning is necessary, the package is not fully sewn into the outer fabric, but an opening and removal option is created using a zip or Velcro fastener.

The antiballistic protection layers are contained in the clothing in the form of the so-called antiballistic package. This package is covered on both sides by cover layers, which can be of different types. In the context of the invention, covering layers are understood to mean layers of textile or non-textile fabrics which are arranged under or above the package of protective layers.

Cover layers are also PVC films, for example, which are used to weld in the antiballistic protective layers. However, the invention is not intended to be limited to the use of PVC films; other materials suitable for this purpose can also be used in the same way. If PVC foils are used, the bust part is shaped using a molding process at temperatures of 60 - 100 ° C, preferably at 70 - 90 ° C. The machine pressure is 2 - 5 bar (200 - 500 kPa), preferably 3 - 4 bar (300 - 400 kPa).

For the production of splinter protection vests for women, which are used particularly in the military field, for example, 14 layers are placed one on top of the other in such a way that the molded bust parts lie exactly one above the other. The layers are sewn together at the edges. The antiballistic package formed in this way is then sewn or welded into a prefabricated envelope, for example made of polyester fabric coated on both sides with neoprene, with a bust part likewise shaped by molding. The coated polyester fabric is deformed in such a way that the bust part is shaped in accordance with the shape of the antiballistic layers in a double-layer coated polyester fabric which has already been sewn or welded at one edge and is still open at three edges. In addition to coated polyester fabrics, other coated textile fabrics can also be used as the covering material. When using coated polyester fabrics, the bust part is shaped using a molding process at temperatures of 180-220 ° C, preferably at 190-210 ° C. The set machine pressure here is 5-7 bar (500-700 kPa), preferably 5.5-6.5 bar (550-650 kPa). The antiballistic package is inserted into this sleeve, which then has a bust part on both the front and the back, and the edges that are still open are sewn or welded. The package, which is welded or sewn into the envelope made of coated polyester fabric or another coated textile fabric, is then introduced, for example, into a colored or printed cotton or cotton-polyester fabric which is adapted to the shape of the antiballistic package.

The protective clothing according to the invention offers a high level of comfort for female security forces through a bust part formed in the protective and covering layers by means of molding and does not restrict the freedom of movement. With the protective clothing according to the invention, considerable progress is made in the production of protective clothing, particularly in the production of protective vests for female security personnel, without any loss of protective effectiveness.

Embodiments example 1

A fabric was made in plain weave from a filament yarn made of aramid fibers with a titer of 930 dtex. The thread counts were 10.7 / cm in the warp and 10.5 / cm in the weft. The fabric obtained had a weight of 202 g / m ² and a thickness of 0.30 mm. Cutouts for protective vests were cut out of this fabric. A bust part was individually formed on these blanks using the molding process described in patent application P 44 23 194.6, which was filed with the German Patent Office at the same time. A total of 28 layers of these blanks were put together to form a package and welded into a PVC sleeve, on which a bust had previously been formed by deep drawing. The antiballistic package thus produced was subjected to an attempt at bombardment according to the subjected to the conditions specified above, the bombardment also taking place at the shaped points. With a total of four hits, no bullet was fired. the places changed by Molden. The values for the penetration depth in plasticine were between 26 and 37 mm. The requirements of the German police for use as protective clothing were therefore fully met.

Further attempts at bombardment, in each case at the locations formed by Molden, were carried out on packages with different numbers of antiballistic layers. The following results were determined: Number of layers Bullet Depth of penetration mm 30th No 30th 28 No 31 26 No 36

These results show that even if the number of antiballistic layers in a vest is reduced, the requirements placed on bulletproof vests are still fully met by the shaped areas.

Example 2

A fabric was made in plain weave from a filament yarn made of aramid fibers with a titer of 1,100 dtex. The thread counts were 8.7 / cm in the warp and 8.3 / cm in the weft. The fabric obtained had a weight of 189 g / m ² and a thickness of 0.30 mm. Cuts for protective vests were made from this fabric. A bust part was individually formed on these blanks using the molding process described in patent application P 44 23 194.6, which was filed with the German Patent Office at the same time. A total of 14 layers of these blanks were folded into a package and sewn together along the edges for the bombardment attempt. The antiballistic package produced in this way was subjected to a splinter bombardment in accordance with the conditions of STANAG 2920. The bombardment was carried out with 1.1 g fragments. When the dry package was bombarded, a V50 value of 467 m / sec was registered at the locations deformed by molding. This value means that there is a 50% probability of penetration at this speed. At the non-deformed points, the V50 value was 466 m / sec. Even when bombarded while wet, almost the same values were achieved at shaped and undeformed areas. The V50 value was 437 m / sec at the shaped points and 436 m / sec at the non-deformed points. This example, like the previous one, shows that the shaping of the protective layers by means of molding does not have a negative influence on the antiballistic effect of the protective clothing.

Claims (6)

1. Protective clothing, especially antiballistic protective clothing for women, consisting of cover layers and/or one or more protective layers superimposed on and possibly joined to one another, said protective layers consisting of textile flat structures made from antiballistically acting fibers, characterized in that said protective layers and/or said cover layers contain contoured shapes imparted by a molding process for fitting to body shapes, in particular a contour of a bust formed by a molding process, and that the contouring of the protective layers has been effected on single layers or on packages of several layers without the additional use of a resin.
2. Protective clothing according to Claim 1, characterized in that said protective layers consist of textile flat structures made from aramide fibers.
3. Protective clothing according to at least one of Claims 1-2, characterized in that said protective layers consist of woven fabrics made from aramide fibers.
4. Protective clothing for women in accordance with Claim 1, especially antiballistic protective clothing for women, characterized in that it contains a bust contoured by a molding process in said protective layers and/or said cover layers.
5. Bullet-inhibiting protective clothing for women, in particular bulletproof vest, in accordance with Claim 1, with antiballistically effective protective layers sealed into a jacket of PVC sheeting, whereby said jacket forms said cover layers, characterized in that both said protective layers and said jacket have a bust contoured by a molding process.
6. Splinter-inhibiting protective clothing for women, in particular splinterproof vest, in accordance with Claim 1, with antiballistically effective protective layers sewn or sealed into a jacket consisting of a coated textile flat structure, whereby said jacket forms said cover layers, characterized in that both said protective layers and said jacket have a bust contoured by a molding process.