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The following fabrics are used in parachute fabrication (information gathered from Knake, Section 6.6.1):

Natural Fibers

• silk
• cotton

Man-made fibers

• Kevlar
• Dacron
• Nylon

This is the most-commonly used fabric for parachute gores. All of the MIT Rocket Team's Parachutes to date (January, 2018) have been fabricated out of the ripstop variety. It is important to note that nylon retains most of its strength up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Nylon has the following, other general property ranges:

• • elongation 

    Mathinline
    body 29 \rightarrow 40\%

  • tenacity:

    Mathinline
    body 2.5 \rightarrow 9.5 \frac{g}{denier}

    , usually 6.6 for parachutes
    
    
• Teflon
• Rayon

This outdated material burns easily and has poor performance when wet.

Terminology

tenacity: a strength metric for yarn or fiber; 

denier: fiber mass per 9000 meters

Resources

T.W. Knacke, Parachute Recovery Systems: Design Manual

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