Compression behavior of warp-knitted spacer fabrics for cushioning applications

Abstract

Cushioning materials generally absorb kinetic mechanical energy under compression actions at a relatively constant stress over a large range of displacement. However, cushioning materials widely used today are polyurethane (PU) foams with low moisture transmission. As a new class of three-dimensional textile structures, warp-knitted spacer fabrics not only have much better moisture transmission property than PU foams, but also have the similar cushioning performance if appropriate structural parameters are adopted. This paper reports an experimental study on the compression behavior of a series of warp-knitted fabrics made for cushioning applications. These fabrics were produced on a double-needle bar warp knitting machine of gauge 18 by varying different structural parameters including spacer yarn inclination angle and fineness, fabric thickness, and outer layer structure. Both the compression stress-strain curves and energy efficiency diagrams from the testing results were used to analyze the compression behavior of these fabrics and the effect of each structural parameter. The results indicate that warp-knitted spacer fabrics are an ideal class of the energy absorbers for cushioning applications and their energy-absorption capacity can easily be tailored to meet specific end-use requirements by simply varying their structural parameters with the help of efficiency diagrams.

Flexural Properties of Syntactic foam Reinforced by Warp Knitted Spacer Fabric

“…The published studies conducted on WKSF or composites enhanced by WKSF are mainly the focus on their compressive and impact properties [11][12][13]. In these researches, WKSF showed good cushioning performance, and the great structural integrity of WKSF could prevent the clustering and bunching of reinforced fibres.…”

Mechanical Properties Of 3D-Structure Composites Based On Warp-Knitted Spacer Fabrics

“…As a reinforcement material, warp-knitted spacer fabrics have much better moisture transmission features [3], better resilience properties [4] and higher air permeability [5]. Moreover, composites reinforced by warp-knitted spacer fabrics exhibit superior mechanical performance compared to other textilebased composites [6][7][8][9].…”

“…However, none of researchers has concentrated on the flexible composites based on spacer fabrics. The 3D-structure composites involved in this study possess a flexible structure, which is quite different from the composites made with stiff surfaces as shown in literatures [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. The novel integrated 3D-structure composites are expected to be used for cushioning applications, such as the car seat, package materials, protection materials, and so on in order to reduce fractures after suffering compression or impact loads.…”

Comparison of GA-Optimized Viscoelastic Models for the Characterization of Compression Behavior of Warp-Knitted Spacer Fabrics

“…The results showed that lower monofilament inclination angle, higher fabric thickness, finer spacer yarn and larger size of surface structure meshes result in lower energy absorption in compression. [3] Du and Hu analyzed the spherical compression properties of WKSF theoretically. They investigated the deformation shape of the WKSF under spherical compression and established a relationship between total compression force and strain at the maximal compression point.…”