Computation of mechanical anisotropy in thermally bonded bicomponent fibre nonwovens

Having a unique microstructure composed of randomly-oriented polymer-based fibres, nonwovens exhibit complex deformation characteristics. The most prominent one is the mechanical anisotropy leading to their direction-dependent deformation behaviour. This paper focuses on mechanical anisotropy of thermally bonded bicomponent fibre nonwovens with polymer-based bicomponent core/sheath fibres. A relation between mechanical anisotropy of these nonwovens and random orientation of their fibres is developed in this study. Random orientation of individual fibres is quantified in terms of the orientation distribution function (ODF) in order to determine the material's anisotropy. The ODF is obtained by analysing the data acquired with scanning electron microscopy or X-ray micro-computed tomography using digital image processing techniques based on the Hough transform. A numerical tool is developed to perform this analysis and determine the anisotropic parameters in order to define direction-dependency of the structure's mechanical properties. Finally, anisotropic parameters of various nonwovens computed with the introduced numerical approach are compared with those obtained from tensile tests applied in machine and cross directions of nonwovens. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.