Textile mechanics

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Figure 1. Cotton plain weave fabric with TexGen mesh displayed in in-house FE viewer

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Figure 2. Effect of fabric thickness on a plain weave unit cell compression

TexGen has been used to create the geometry of fabrics for meso-scale textile mechanics modelling. Meshing can either be done directly within TexGen or geometry can be exported to the two most common CAD exchange file formats, IGES and STEP. Alternatively Python scripts can be used to transfer geometry to specific third party applications such as ABAQUS.

The in-house finite element analysis software features periodic boundary conditions as well as a periodic contact algorithm eliminating the need for elements to be contained within a set unit cell. This is illustrated in the Figure 1. Deformations are applied by adjusting the repeat vectors. Using this approach, tensile and shear strains can easily be applied without overconstraining the model.

Work using the commercial finite element software package ABAQUS has also been carried out investigating the effect of fabric architectures on fabric mechanical properties. Figure 2 shows the effect of yarn crimp height on a unit cell compression behaviour.