Mechanical Behavior of Highly-Flexible Elastomeric Composites with Knitted-Fabric Reinforcement

This paper examines critical issues associated with the fabrication and forming of highly-flexible polymeric composites, reinforced with knitted-fabric structures. The unique formability of knitted fabrics is mainly due to relatively unrestrained yarn movement. In this study, a multi-level finite element procedure was developed to analyze and control the deformation characteristics of plain weft-knit reinforced composites. A database of mechanical properties for various knit geometries was obtained. Using these results, it is shown that carefully "tailored" knit fabric reinforcement can be used to improve mechanical performance and facilitate polymer forming processes, such as thermoforming. It is shown that by fully utilizing the high stretchability of the knitted fabric reinforcements, attractive material properties can be obtained especially for energy/impact absorption and forming applications.