Directionally Oriented Reinforcements of Warp-Knitted Fabrics for Composite Preforms

Abstract

This paper focuses on the development of a methodology for the directional structural modification of warp-knitted fabrics by sewing on carbon fiber tapes. Four-, five-, and six-axial geometric systems were designed to optimize the qualitative distribution of stresses on the surface of the tested product. Through a numerical experiment in the ANSYS environment, the impact of the change in the axiality of a textile structure on the mechanical properties of the modeled geometric configuration was assessed. This analysis was experimentally verified by measuring the multiaxial force distribution on the knitted surface, which demonstrated that Variant 7, with six axes 30° apart, was the most favorable.

Keywords

• multiaxial knitted fabrics
• knitted composite reinforcements
• technical yarns
• design of knitted fabrics
• structural modification of knitted fabrics