Military uniforms, as armor that protects soldiers, have always played an important role in war. From the early coarse cloth and fine cloth to chemical fiber fabrics, blended fabrics… to today’s functional fabrics, my country’s military uniform fabrics have developed very rapidly.
Although it is developing rapidly, when we talk to companies about the technical issues of military uniform fabrics, although the companies have enough confidence in their own technology, they also admit that there is still a long way to go compared with foreign companies.
The United States has relatively advanced technology in terms of military uniform fabrics. In 1983, U.S. military uniform fabrics featured a woodland camouflage pattern in dark brown, dark green, black and tan. Twenty years later, in terms of color design, U.S. military uniform fabrics adopted digital universal camouflage patterns that can better integrate with the environment, and added flame retardant, high temperature resistance and other properties.
Flame retardant and lightweight are the trends
According to David from the U.S. Army’s Natick Soldier Research and Development Engineering Center, with the development of science and technology, military uniforms are also quietly changing and being given more and more high-tech factors. What kind of high-tech factors do military uniforms have? In this issue, fabrics play a leading role. The fabric used to make military uniforms must be comfortable, breathable, wear-resistant, washable, and non-fading, and it also needs to have anti-infrared reflectivity.
Fabrics used by the military also need to be high-performance. Eugene, a senior scientist at the R&D center, believes that protection and durability are very important for military uniform fabrics. In addition, other factors need to be considered, such as comfort and cost.
Since soldiers wear military uniforms to fight, it is very important to reduce the weight of military uniforms without affecting other performance of the product. A company in the United States called DSM Dyneema is currently trying to produce this kind of high-performance, lightweight military fabric. It uses ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers to produce unidirectional composite sheets through a gel spinning process. This material is very light but harder than steel.
This product can be used in personal protection solutions such as bulletproof vests. In addition, this product can also be used for vehicle protection. DSM, the global business director of DSM Dyneema in the United States, said that the use of unidirectional composite sheets to produce ballistic protective equipment only increases the protective performance without increasing its weight.
Another important attribute of military fabrics is flame retardancy. When the American Gore Company develops products, it provides products with lighter weight and more compressible capabilities, and increases the flame retardant properties of the products.
The Battleshield and BattleshieldX fabrics developed by the company’s Military Fabrics Division use new nylon face sheets and the company’s flame-retardant stretch process to increase the product’s breathability while improving waterproofness and leakage resistance. In addition, Gore has developed GOREPYRAD flame retardant technology with self-extinguishing laminates that can be used to prevent arc flash and arc flash accidents.
Recently, the U.S. Army’s Natick Soldier Research and Development Engineering Center has developed the Army’s digital camouflage universal combat uniform, which uses flame-retardant rayon, aramid and nylon. Military tops mainly use flame-retardant aramid and nylon materials; combat pants increase the flame-retardancy and durability of the fabric, and have removable kneepads, which reduce weight and volume while providing a wider range of breathability safety and environmental protection.
The U.S. Army’s Natick Soldier Research and Development Engineering Center is now developing “self-cleaning” uniforms that are designed to be durable and feature a super waterproof coating. Field tests have shown that the coated fabric exhibits near-unattractive properties to dust and dirt, petroleum, and hazardous chemicals.
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