Biaxial weft-knitted fabrics as composite reinforcements: A review

Abstract

Textile products are considered as an acceptable alternative for commonly used composite reinforcement due to their lightweight as well as relatively high specific strength and stiffness. Among the variety of textile structures which could be employed in composite manufacturing, the role of weft-knitted fabrics is almost very limited. This is because employing the weft-knitting technology would provide such structures with inferior mechanical properties due to their highly looped construction as well as low fiber volume fraction. But on other hand, it is important to be noted that some advantages such as high energy absorption, good impact resistance, and formability of knitted structures made the researchers to focus on investigating different methods by which the inferior mechanical properties of ordinary weft-knitted fabrics could be improved. Inserting the reinforcing yarns through the warp and weft direction of the knitted fabrics is considered as one of the effective solution for improving their mechanical behavior which eventually leads to a high potential product called as biaxial weft-knitted fabrics. In this literature, it is aimed to review different aspects of novel designed biaxial weft-knitted fabrics which could be suitable for a broad area of technical application such as composite reinforcements.

Mechanical performance of tubular composites reinforced by innovative 3D integrated knitted spacer fabrics

“…In order to increase the stiffness of weft‐knitted fabrics especially for composite applications, pre‐tensioning techniques, or the introduction of straight non‐curved yarns (weft or warp yarn, miss and tuck stitches) are required . Araújo et al .…”

“…All the produced knitted structures as the textile preforms were used to manufacture the tubular composites parts. During molding operation of composites reinforced with the tubular 3D integrated spacer weft‐knitted fabrics, providing their 3D geometry unchangeable needs an additional preparing step in which some PTFE inserts based on the fabrics geometrical configuration is used to fill the free spaced parts of the fabrics . Incorporation of PTFE components into the fabric structures is not only aimed to maintain the samples structural geometries, but it is also done for applying the predetermined tension to the looped yarns.…”

Process-Induced Distortions Characterization of MBWK Fabric Reinforced Composite Helmet Shell

“…The three-layer-connected biaxial weft knitted fabric is chosen for this experiment, as the structure shown in Figure 1, where the stitching system structure is 1 + 1 rib, which has good stretch property and can provide adequate space for inserting yarns shearing [29][30][31], and the inserting yarns are parallel and straight, hence the utilization rate of high performance fiber is over 90% [32]. In addition, the various type of inserting yarns hybrid ratio lend the MBWK fabric flexible designability [33]. Literatures show that the MBWK fabrics are widely applied in the fields of personal protective equipment, wind power, and automobile industry [33,34].…”

“…In addition, the various type of inserting yarns hybrid ratio lend the MBWK fabric flexible designability [33]. Literatures show that the MBWK fabrics are widely applied in the fields of personal protective equipment, wind power, and automobile industry [33,34].…”

Numerical Modelling of the Mechanical Behaviour of Biaxial Weft-Knitted Fabrics on Different Length Scales

“…Weft-knitted fabrics offer an excellent formability into complex shapes. In biaxial weft-knitted fabric, yarns are inserted in the warp (wale-wise) and weft (course-wise) directions as a reinforcement [5,6,7,8]. Due to these straight yarns, the mechanical properties of such fabrics are better than those of unreinforced weft-knitted fabrics with the forming capacity still being high.…”