Meso-level bending/reverse-bending analysis of dry woven fabrics: Observing an irreversible behavior during forming

During the design and simulation of woven fabric structures and forming processes, the loading/unloading re-gimes are often neglected. The overlooked strain history and associated irreversible behavior may have non-negligible impacts on product performance. In this article, it is first experimentally shown that local bending/ reverse-bending can occur during a typical hemispherical forming process, and therefore critical mechanical properties such as the fabric bending rigidity can vary non-linearly during deformation, accompanied by a hysteresis. The magnitude of this variation is a function of multiple parameters such as part geometry, fabric crimp, friction, the twist of fibers, among others. A basic meso-level modeling framework has been adopted here to predict the above cyclic bending response of a typical dry glass/polypropylene plain weave. The predicted irreversibility is validated with experiments, using both single-layer and double-layer fabric layouts of different sizes, as well as single yarns.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates that the loading/unloading regimes are often overlooked during the design and simulation of woven fabric structures and forming processes. Experimental results show that local bending/reverse-bending can occur during a typical forming process, impacting critical mechanical properties of the fabric. The study also highlights the importance of considering multiple parameters in predicting the cyclic bending response of woven fabrics.