This work reports on research being carried out in order to exploit the potentialities of electronic flat knitting machines and braiding technologies in the production of novel structures made of fibre glass for use as performs in textile structural composites.
The application of textile fabrics in engineering designs is a very important and interesting development. This type of fabrics, known as technical textiles, have been widely used for protective clothing, transportation, geosynthetics, building, road construction, packing materials, military, medicine and sports, and so on.
This paper presents some of the recent research work, taking place in the development of weft-knitted fabrics for technical applications, especially for composite material reinforcement. Special reference is made to knitted 3D shaped fabrics and sandwich shaped fabrics with controlled anisotropy.
When a mandrel is incorporated, at the formation stage of a braided fabric, a 3D hollow braided structure with form may be produced. The rate of the take-up system must be adjusted to match the feeding rate of the braiding carriers. This rate influences the braiding angle and the extent of thread compacting. Rapid take-up results in a sharp crossing angle and a relatively loose braid. A slow rate of take-up leads to a wider crossing angle and a firm, compacted thread structure.
When shaping a braided fabric with constant rate of take-up, thread compacting changes with fabric width (diameter), the structure becoming open at larger diameters and more compact at smaller diameters. This work reports on the development of a computer controlled fabric take-up system, which enables the production of complex shape 3D hollow braids with homogeneous cover.
By: M. D. de Araújo, H. Hong, R. Fangueiro, A. Moschatou and L. Ciobanu The University of Minho,
Submit Date: 6/7/2010 18:00