Modelling technical textiles for high performance clothing

Citation

Stylios, G.K. (2006), "Modelling technical textiles for high performance clothing", International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Vol. 18 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijcst.2006.05818daa.001

Modelling technical textiles for high performance clothing

Modelling technical textiles for high performance clothing

Some four or so years ago as the Director of the UK's Faraday Partnership in Technical Textiles or TechniTex Faraday as it is now called, I helped the partnership by leading it in a £1.2 million collaborative generic joint project with The University of Manchester, The University of Leeds and my own university.

This project which aimed to put forward a platform for enabling technical textiles to be truly engineered for functionality and performance was recently completed. The Manchester component of this work led by Dr X Chen is very interesting because by sorting out geometric and mechanical models more realistically than ones put forward so far, they can simulate impact in a reliable way, amongst other modes of loading. Since, impact resistance/deformation is a very important property for high performance clothing, I am unveiling in this editorial the approach and results of Manchester.

Dr Chen's team in Manchester aimed to provide design tools to enable technical textiles companies to engineer products with specific performances, i.e. to create geometric and mechanical models to predict the structural performance of technical textiles fabrics under specific load conditions. Here is a summary of their results.

Geometric modelling

The accurate prediction for fabric properties is the key here, so the fabric geometry must be provided realistically. Hence, the control points of the yarn path and yarn cross-section calculation is based on the minimum strain energy principle, and the geometry is represented by the periodic interpolating B-spline.

Figure 1 shows the cross section of a real fabric and Figure 2 shows the principle of the B-Spline.

_{Figure 1.}

_{Figure 2.}

Figure 3 is a simulation of an open fabric with real parameters. The modelling tool allows the physical properties to be calculated including the area density, cover factor, repeat dimension, and fabric thickness.

_{Figure 3.}

Mechanical modelling

The energy method was used for the modelling in conjunction with the force equilibrium method, being generic and hence not dependent on the type of the weave. For 2D woven fabrics, the basic energy relation is:V = ΣF.δx+ΣU(u)where V is the total energy of the system, F and x are the complementary forces and deformations, and ΣU(u) is the sum of strain energy due to material deformation. Figure 4 shows an output of the software.

_{Figure 4.}

Software tools

The research results from geometric and mechanical modelling have been integrated into the software tool to assist the engineering of woven fabrics, shown in Figure 5.

_{Figure 5.}

High performance clothing

Three dimensional hollow textiles composites, Figure 6 were made and investigated for impact energy absorption and personnel protection. The geometrical modelling has enabled the CAD/CAM tool dealing with complex woven fabrics.

_{Figure 6.}

Finally, Figure 7 shows an example of the simulation of impact in high performance clothing for body amour.

Figure 7.Body armour for high performance clothing and an output from software simulation

This is a mere snap shot of an extensive piece of work and if anybody from the community like more details you can look at the team's web site on www.texeng.co.uk or on the TechniTex Faraday web site www.technitex.org or get intouch directly with them.

In another editorial I will be reporting on the work of the University of Leeds who has researched air flow measurement and modelling.

G.K. StyliosEditor in Chief