Effect of intra-tow flow on plain woven fabric permeability using virtual fiber-voxel element method

A geometric modeling platform based on the virtual fiber-voxel element is proposed to characterize textile reinforcement in a cost-effective way, which could reflect the systemic local changes of the tow path and tow cross-section. The finite volume method is used to solve the governing equation of the boundary value problem, and the permeability of the fabric is calculated by using the flow field data obtained from the model. The flow field analysis and pressure drop in flow direction of different thickness unit cells suggest that the size of inter-tow channels play a vital role in determining the overall in-plane permeability values. The flow channels of the inter tow in warp direction were found to be greater than in the weft direction, which causes the overall permeability to be anisotropic.

Automated summary

This study proposes a geometric modeling platform based on the virtual fiber-voxel element to characterize textile reinforcement, which can reflect the local changes of the tow path and tow cross-section. The results show that the size of the inter-tow channels plays a key role in determining the overall in-plane permeability values, with the channels in the warp direction being larger than those in the weft direction, resulting in anisotropic permeability.