Full-field strain measurements are applied in studies of textile deformability during composite processing: (1) in testing of shear and tensile deformations of textiles (picture frame, bias and biaxial extension test) as an ''optical extensometer'', allowing accurate assessment of the sample deformation, which may differ significantly from the deformation applied by the testing device; (2) to study mechanisms of the textile deformation on the scale of the textile unit cell and of the individual yarns (meso-and micro-scale full-field strain measurements); (3) to measure the 3D-deformed shape and the distribution of local deformations (e.g., shear angles) of a textile reinforcement after draping, providing input data for the validation of material drape models and for the prediction of the consolidated part performance via structural finite element analysis. This paper discusses these three applications of the full-field strain measurements, providing examples of studies of deformability of woven (glass, glass/PP) and non-crimp (carbon) textile reinforcements. The authors conclude that optical full-field strain techniques are the preferable (sometimes the only) way of assuring correct deformation measurements during tensile or shear tests of textile.

SUMMARYA new algorithm family taking into account the entire loading process in a single large time increment is proposed to compute structures with physical non-linearities and is tested on some examples in elastoplasticity. The method considerably reduces the number of transfers between local and global levels, hence the numerical cost of calculation is also diminished.

The paper presents an approach to model the behaviour of a representative volume element (unit cell) of textile reinforcement in in-plane deformation (bi-axial tension and shear) and in compression. The model is a further development of a virtual textile concept implemented in the WiseTex software, and is based on the concept of hierarchical description of textile properties and systematic application of the principle of minimum energy to calculate the textile geometry in the relaxed and deformed state. With the internal geometry of the unit cell built, the model computes overall parameters of the deformed textile, such as fibre volume fraction, porosity etc. The internal geometry is visualised and such properties as pore structure in typical cross-sections are analysed. The load-deformation curves for compression, tension and shear are computed via the balance between change of the internal energy of the unit cell and mechanical work of the applied loads. The internal geometry description is further fed into flow modelling software, which allows computing local permeability of the deformed reinforcement, and micro-mechanical modelling to calculate homogenised local stiffness of the composite.

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