Abstract: Recently，there are frequent incidents of police officers and doctors being stabbed. Stabbing-resistant clothing plays a significant role as the last line of defense of human lives. It is typically made of high-strength composite fibers. Despite extensive stabbing resistance testing，the mechanism of such products' stabbing resistance performance remains unclear. Three typical stab-resistant materials，namely plain woven aramid fabric with epoxy resin，unidirectional high-performance polyethylene fiber cloth，and pure plain woven aramid fabric，are herein examined through bending stiffness，hardness，quasi-static stabbing，and dynamic stabbing tests. The stabbing resistance mechanism of the three materials under specific areal densities are studied. The results show that high-bending stiffness and hardness significantly enhance the quasi-static and dynamic stabbing performance of the product，showing a higher reaction force and smaller deformation. In addition，as most of the weapon's kinetic energy is transformed into the kinetic energy and deformation energy of the stab-resistant clothing and the backing material，less energy is absorbed for material damage. Therefore，it is more important to enhance the hardness and bending stiffness of the stab-resistant clothing rather than boosting its energy absorption capacity. A new generation of lightweight，flexible stab-resistant products can be developed based on our theoretical findings.

Key words: aramidfiber, ultra-highmolecularpolyethylenefiber, staticstabbing, dynamicstabbing, bendingstiffness, hardness