Abstract:
The relationship between the flexural rigidity of standard warp knitted fabrics and fabric and yam parameters, such as wale and course spacing, underlap length of the front and back guide bars, yam bending rigidity, etc., is discussed. In this study, a mechanical model for the bending behaviour of the warp knitted fabrics is also presented. In theoretical analysis, the knitted fabric loop structure is assumed to consist of a series of straight and skew yam simulating legs and underlaps. The estimation of fabric bending rigidity is based on summing up the bending rigidity of the straight and skew yams that found by energy method with taking into account of rigid region lying in the direction of bending. The estimated values from this model are compared with experimental results obtained on a developed automatic cyclic pure bending tester. Comparison with experimental and theoretical data shows reasonable agreement between predicted and measured flexural rigidity of warp knitted fabrics.
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