COMPUTER-ASSISTED STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF INDUSTRIAL WOVEN FABRICS .3. MODELING OF FABRIC UNIAXIAL BIAXIAL LOAD-DEFORMATION

This is the third of a three-part series describing an attempt to deve lop a comprehensive computational framework for aiding the engineering design of woven industrial fabrics. The main aim of this work is to d evelop a generalized knowledge-based CAD system for fabric design. The present status of this research has been described in [3]. Completing the CAD system entails detailed development of an analytic phase comp rised of a set of computational models for simulation of fabric behavi our under external stimuli, and for the predictive estimation of some important properties. Toward that end, an analysis of uniaxial/biaxial load-deformation of a plain woven fabric has been developed under cer tain restrictive conditions. Part III describes, in detail, the theore tical and practical aspects of this analysis (model). A brief literatu re review of previous work on this subject is followed by a descriptio n of the mathematical model, its computational expression, and the exp erimental tests performed to validate the theoretical results. The the oretical and experimental results are discussed, and some conclusions are drawn.