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Mechanics of textile composites: Micro-geometry

2008; Elsevier BV; Volume: 68; Issue: 7-8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.compscitech.2008.02.018

1879-1050

Yuyang Miao, Eric Zhou, Youqi Wang, B. A. Cheeseman,

Structural Analysis and Optimization

Textile fabric geometry determines textile composite properties. Textile process mechanics determines fabric geometry. In previous papers, the authors proposed a digital element model to generate textile composite geometry by simulating the textile process. The greatest difficulty encountered with its employment in engineering practice is efficiency. A full scale fiber-based digital element analysis would consume huge computational resources. Two advances are developed in this paper to overcome the problem of efficiency. An improved contact-element formulation is developed first. The new formulation improves accuracy. As such, it permits a coarse digital element mesh. Then, a static relaxation algorithm to determine fabric micro-geometry is established to replace step-by-step textile process simulation. Employing the modified contact element formulation in the static relaxation approach, the required computer resource is only 1–2% of the resource required by the original process. Two critical issues with regards to the digital element mesh are also examined: yarn discretization and initial yarn cross-section shape. Fabric geometries derived from digital element analysis are compared to experimental results.