why can’t kevlar stop rifle bullets even though it’s strong than steel on an equal weight basis?

Question

Ar500 steel plate can stop rifle bullets. In my brain I’m thinking like “well if kevlar is stronger than steel, then slab of kevlar of the same size of an ar500 plate should stop rifle bullets too”. Clearly it doesn’t and I don’t understand why

In: Engineering

Answer 1

It’s stronger than steel in tension loads, as in you can hang more weight from it like a rope. It is MUCH weaker than steel in compression and torsion loads.

Simple case of people cherry picking some words out of context to be sensationalist when they say StRoNgEr ThAn StEeL because that is technically true in one specific situation.