Term Paper- TXL231

Design and Development of

Woven Spacer Fabrics

Presented By:
• Avishek Tiwari (2019TT10959)
• Prashant Yadav (2019TT11006)
ABSTRACT

In this research, design and development of woven spacer fabrics has mentioned. Its structures can
be defined as 3D structures having two separate fabric layers connected with spacer yarns (pile
yarns) or fabric layers, maintaining hollow space between adjacent connecting yarns or fabric
layers. The weaving process is capable of producing spacer preforms with a variety of integrated
core configurations: skin layers connected with core piles; skin layers connected with woven cross-
links forming an array of hollow tunnels with different geometrical shapes like rectangular,
triangular and trapezoidal etc. It also include various design of oven spacer fabrics like Sandwich
and other structures, even its development and manufacturing processes, application and wide use
of it in various fields.

Introduction

Textile manufacturing is a very ancient craft, with a history almost as mankind as itself. Textile
products play a vital role in meeting man's basic needs. Textile products play a vital role in meeting
man's basic needs. Textiles are also important in all aspects of our lives from birth to death.

The development of man-made fibers and new dyestuffs in the early part of the 20th century opened
up completely new application areas for technical textiles. Synthetic fibers offered high strength,
elasticity, uniformity, chemical resistance, flame resistance and abrasion resistance among other
things. Applications of new chemicals help the design engineers to tailor their products for special
uses. New fabrication techniques also contributed to the improved performance and service life of
technical textiles the technological advances of textiles affect in various industries. The application
of textile material in technical textiles has given an impetus to fiber technology. In similar fashion,
design and development of woven spacer fabrics technology helped the mankind. Its advancement
openthe door for various other technologies and led to development of various flexural polymeric
fabrics, advancement in fabric structures for wound care, high performance apparel for protection
etc.
Design and Structure

Composite materials are constructed of two or more materials, commonly referred to as

constituents, and have characteristics derived from the individual constituents. Depending on the
manner in which the constituents are put together, the resulting composite materials may have the
combined characteristics of the constituents or have substantially different properties than the
individual constituent. Classification of textile reinforcement structures can be done in several
ways depending on the preform structure's parameters. It has listed several variables for
classification of textile structures. They are dimension (1, 2, or 3), direction of reinforcement (0,
1, 2, 3, 4, . . .), fiber continuity (continuous, discontinuous), linearity of reinforcement (linear, non-
linear), bundle size in each direction (1, 2, 3, 4,. . .) twist of fiber bundle (no twist, certain amount
of twist), integration of structure (laminated or integrated), method of manufacturing (woven,
orthogonal woven, knit, braid, nonwoven), and packing density (open or solid). Further classified
textile structures based on fiber/yarn axis and dimension. The fabric requirements for composite
applications are dimensional stability, conformability and mold ability. 3D-fabric structures were
developed within the last two decades to withstand multi-directional mechanical stresses and
thermal stresses. 3Dstructures also improved interlaminar strength and damage tolerance
significantly. Fiber-reinforced composites Fiber-reinforced composites (or fibrous composites) are
the most commonly used form of the constituent combinations. The fibers of such composites are
generally strong and stiff and therefore serve as the primary load-carrying constituent. The matrix
holds the fibers together and serves as an agent to redistribute the loads from a broken fiber to the
adjacent fibers in the material when fibers start failing under excessive loads. This property of the
matrix constituent contributes to one of the most important characteristics of the fibrous
composites, namely, improved strength compared to the individual constituent. Woven fabrics that
are used in composites can be grouped as two-dimensional (2-D) and three dimensional (3-D)
structures. 2D-weaving is a relatively high-speed economical process. However, woven fabrics
have an inherent crimp or waviness in n the interlaced yarns, and this is undesirable for maximum
composite properties. In 2D-structures, yarns are laid in a plane and the thickness of the fabric is
small compared to its in-plane dimensions. Single layer designs include plain, basket, twill and
satin weaves which are used in laminates. Two-dimensional woven fabrics are generally
anisotropic, have poor in-plane shear resistance and have less modulus than the fiber materials due
to existence of crimp and crimp interchange. Reducing yarn crimp in the loading direction or using
high modulus yarns improves fabric modulus. To increase isotropy, in-plane shear rigidity and
other properties in bias or diagonal direction, triaxially woven fabrics are developed in which three
yarn systems interlace at 60° angles as shown in Fig. 2.2. Other mechanical properties required in
relation to different loading conditions are- through thickness stiffness and strength properties,
enhanced impact resistance, fatigue resistance, dimensional stability, fraction thickness, damage
tolerance, and subtle conformability.

In 3D-fabric structures, the thickness or Z-direction dimension is considerable relative to X and Y

dimensions. Fibers or yarns are intertwined, interlaced or intermeshed in the X (longitudinal), Y
(cross), and Z (vertical) directions. For 3D-structures, there may be an endless number of
possibilities for yarn spacing in a 3-D space .
3-D fabrics are woven on special looms with multiple warp and weft layers. Fig shows various
3D-Woven structures. In polar weave structure, fibers or yarns are placed equally in
circumferential, radial and axial directions. The fiber volume fraction is around 50%. Polar weaves
are suitable to make cylindrical walls, cylinders, cones and convergent-divergent sections. To form
such a shape, prepreg yarns are inserted into a mandrel in the radial direction.
A typical step for weaving a multilayer preform includes two, three, or more systems of warp yarns
and special shedding mechanism that allows lifting the harnesses to a many levels as the number
of layers of warp yarns. By this weaving method, various fiber architectures can be produced,
including solid orthogonal panels, variable thickness solid panel, and core structures simulating a
box beam or truss-like structure /20/. The most widely used materials in 2D- or 3D-weaving are
carbon/graphite, glass, and aramid. Any material that can be shaped as a fiber can be woven into
preforms, more or less complicated. Woven preforms can be made of a single type of fiber material
or different fiber and yarn materials can be used as a hybrid structure.

Due to the nature of woven structure geometry and weaving process, when selecting a fiber for
weaving or for any other textile manufacturing process, fiber brittleness and bending rigidity need
to be considered. For example, carbon and graphite fibers, which account for 90% of all 3D-woven
preforms, are prone to break and fracture during weaving.process, when selecting a fiber for
weaving or for any-woven preforms.

Prepreg

A prepreg is a textile structure that is impregnated with uncured matrix resin. There are various
forms of prepregs such as unidirectional and multi-directional tape prepregs and woven fabric
prepregs. Common fibers that are used for prepregs are carbon, fiberglass and aramid. Fig. 2.7
shows a schematic of a typical prepreg machine for unidirectional tape prepreg. Fibers are wound
and collimated as a tape. The matrix resin is heated to reduce viscosity and dispersed on the fibers.
The prepreg is curved out for uniform thickness. Prepregs are suitable for hand and machine lay-
up. It shows uni- and multi-directional lay-ups. Increasing the number of oriented plies increases
the isotropic strength. Four ply directions, i.e., 0o /90o /+45o /-45o orientations are considered to
be sufficient for isotropic properties. Woven fabric prepregs are widely used in composite
manufacturing. Hot melt or solvent coating processes are used to prepreg the fabrics. The hot melt
process is similar to prepregging unidirectional tapes. In solvent coating, fabric is chemically
compatible with the reinforcement; material and should not deteriorate the mechanical properties
of the interphase between reinforcement and matrix.

Design and Development of Woven Spacer Fabrics

Woven spacer fabrics as reinforcement for lightweight sandwich composites

Lightweight sandwich composites mainly utilize hollow textile preforms as their reinforcement.
The production of such structures with desired mechanical properties requires monitoring of its
repeat unit weight and fibre volume fraction (FVF) from designing stage itself.
Lightweight sandwich composite materials are increasingly being sought for technical applications
because of their high specific strength and stiffness. In case of sandwich structures produced with
bonding technology, the connection between face sheet and the core materials acts as the damage
initiation point under different loading conditions like impact, shear and bending loads . Textile-
based sandwich structures can also be produced by stitching different layers of 2D fabrics, but it
causes localized fibre damage where the sewing needle penetrates the material. Spreading of fibres
around the stitching yarns causes fibre-depleted regions, which during resin impregnation stage
leads to the generation of resin-rich regions . The textile manufacturing processes like warp
knitting, weft knitting and weaving can be used to produce integrated
reinforcements for sandwich structures , which could then be converted to composites using
appropriate resin infusion techniques. This study deals with geometrical properties of preforms
manufactured using weaving process.
Weaving is one of the most conveniently used textile manufacturing processes to produce three-
dimensional preforms for composite reinforcement. Depending upon the end use application, 3D
fabrics can be made to have solid or hollow structures. Composites that are required to have
thickness, impact and delamination resistance are produced from 3D solid structures, while 3D
hollow fabrics are used to produce composites with special properties like bulkiness, lightweight
and energy absorbent . 3D hollow structures (also known as spacer fabrics) connected with woven
crosslinks yield better performance under bending stresses as compared to conventional spacers
connected with pile yarns .
Weaving technology is capable of manufacturing these structures in near net shape, without any
further need for machining or joining steps . 3D hollow structures are characterized by the presence
of array of cells between two outer layers, which can be multilayered with same or different cell
shapes, and may be in warp or weft direction . As the structure is integrally woven, no delamination
or interlaminar separation is caused; higher tensile and
shear strength between the adjacent woven fabric layers of the structure is achieved; and the
structure becomes very light in weight . Hollow fabrics can be grouped in two categories, the one
with uneven surface and the other with even or flat surface. The selection of cross-sectional shape
of the hollow structure is based on the structural integrity, fabric continuity
and topological structure . Generally, the cross-sectional shapes of the tunnel are simple
geometrical shapes like triangular , rectangular , trapezoidal or hexagonal . For a particular
structure, the repeat unit remains constant and can be replicated in length and width direction to
get a composite panel. The characteristics
of the repeat unit represent the behaviour of the entire composite.Chen et al. have mathematically
modeled 3D hollow fabrics with uneven surface and with even or flat surface ; and have also
elaborated the creation of weave designs and manufacturing of hollow fabrics. The change in cell
size, weave density and the linear density of warp or weft changes the density of the structure.
The increase in cell size reduces the density of the structure but makes it difficult to attain the
required mechanical performance. On the other hand, decreasing the cell size improves the
mechanical performance of composite but its weight-reducing effect decreases. This research work
elaborates an approach to calculate repeat unit weight and fibre volume fraction (FVF) of any
hollow woven structure by numerical modeling. The proposed model is validated for
rectangular and trapezoidal spacer samples with different cell structural parameters and different
materials.

Materials
Three woven spacer fabric samples with trapezoidal and rectangular cross-section each were
produced from commercially available high tenacity polyester yarn of 3000 denier; and two
samples each for both the cross-sections were also produced from 5400 denier E-glass tow.

Methods

Production of Spacer Fabrics

All the fabric samples in this study were produced on a customized
weaving machine shown in Figure 1. The machine is equipped with double beam arrangement and
a modified take-up system, capable of releasing the desired length of fabric in counter production
direction and in synchronization with pull back of warp beam(s).

Figure 1
Trapezoidal spacer
The cross-sectional representation of the trapezoidal spacer structure is depicted in Figure 2. The
dots represent the weft yarn while curved lines represent the warp yarns. The generalized weave
design of trapezoidal spacer structure is then created from this cross-sectional representation. To
produce trapezoidal spacer, warp yarns are taken from two beams. The yarns from the first beam
weave the top and bottom fabric layers (layer 1 and layer 3), while the central layer (layer 2) is
woven from the yarns from the second beam. All the three fabric layers are woven simultaneously
and the central layer is integrated with top and bottom layers alternately at specified distance for
specific number of picks to get the desired cell geometry. As the central fabric layer is longer in
length than the corresponding top and bottom layers, more number of picks is required in it. During
insertion of these extra picks, warp yarns weaving top and bottom fabric layers are kept unwoven,
consequently creating floats. After weaving the required length of wall, its warp yarns are
integrated with corresponding top or bottom fabric layer and the floated warp yarns are pulled back
till the previously woven part of the top and bottom
layers joins the fell of the cloth. By varying the number of picks in individual sections of
the fabric (calculated previously), various cell structural parameters like height of the structure
and/or connecting layer angle with horizontal layer, and length of parallel sides can be changed.
In this way, three samples were produced from 3000 denier high tenacity polyester yarn by
changing the length of parallel sides keeping the wall angle and the height constant.

Figure 2 Cross structural representation of trapezoidal spacer structure

Also, two samples were produced from 5400 denier E-glass tows, varying the wall angle, keeping
the height constant. Images of the samples produced are shown in Figure 3 and
the dimensional details of the samples are given in Table 1.

Table 1. Cell structural parameters for trapezoidal spacer fabrics.

Sample h (mm) Fw (mm) Ft (mm) Fe/2 (mm) h_ Material

Tpz 1 36 38 33 12.5 70_ Polyester
Tpz 2 36 38 38 12.5 70_ Polyester
Tpz 3 36 38 43 12.5 70_ Polyester
Tpz 4 30 38 28 23 53_ E-Glass
Tpz 5 30 33 28 12.5 67_ E-Glass

Rectangular spacer structures

The cross-sectional representation of rectangular spacer structure is shown in Figure 4, from which
generalized weave design is created. The double ribs connect top and bottom layers of the fabric
and also constitute the top and bottom layer interchangeably. For production of this type of fabric,
the procedure adopted is discussed as follows. The warp yarns are divided into two sets. One set
weaves top and bottom fabric layers (ground fabrics) of the spacer structure, while the second set
weaves the crosslinks (wall fabrics). When the yarns of first warp set weave the top and bottom
fabric layers, yarns from the second set are also divided into two parts and are integrated into top
and bottom fabric layers. Warp yarns from second set weave the crosslinks
and at the mid-height of the crosslink, the divided warp sheets change their side and start weaving
on opposite sides. During weaving of the crosslink, ground warp yarns are
kept unwoven and thus build floats. After weaving the required length of crosslink, wall warp
yarns are integrated with ground warp yarns for couple of picks. At this point, produced fabric of
length equal to that of the crosslink is released in counter production direction,in synchronization
with the pull back of floated warp yarns till the previously woven part of the top and bottom layers
joins the fell of the cloth . Similar to trapezoidal structure, by varying number of
picks in different sections, height and width of the rectangle were changed. The details of the
structures thus produced are given in Table 2 and the images of the samples are illustrated in Figure
5.
Figure 3- Images of trapezoidal spacer fabrics (a) Tpz 1 (b) Tpz 2 (c) Tpz 3 (d) Tpz 4 (e) Tpz 5

Figure 4 – Cross-sectional representation of Rectangular spacer structure

Figure 5 – Images of Rectangular spacer fabrics (a) Rect 1 (b) Rect 2 (c) Rect 3 (d) Rect 4 (e) Rect
5

Table 3. Specifications of individual fabric layer in polyester and E-glass

samples.
Parameters E (m_1) P(m_ 1) m (kg/m) k (kg/m) q (kg/m3)
Polyester samples 394 394 0.33*10-3 0.33*10-3 1380
E-glass samples 394 394 0.6*10-3 0.6*10-3 2540

Table 4. Crimp analysis of different 2D fabrics.

Material Fabric construction C1 (%) C2 (%)
Polyester 10*10 2 2
Polyester 20*10 2 1.3
E-Glass 10*10 1 1
E-Glass 20*10 2.9 1

Table 5. Volumes of repeat unit for trapezoidal and rectangular structures.

Sample Tpz 1 Tpz 2 Tpz 3 Tpz 4 Tpz 5
Trapezoidal structures
Vuc (m3) 16.69*10-6 18.54*10-6 20.39*10-6 12.59*10-6 15.73*10-6
Sample Rect 1 Rect 2 Rect 3 Rect 4 Rect 5
Rectangular structure
Vuc (m3) 14.95*10-6 24.12*10-6 35.4*10-6 13.37*10-6 10.23*10-6

Figure 7. Microscopic image of cross-section of 2D fabric made from E-glass.

Figure 8. Computed and measured repeat unit weight for trapezoidal

spacer fabrics.
Figure 9. Computed and measured repeat unit weight for rectangular
spacer fabrics

Figure 10. Computed and measured FVF for trapezoidal spacer fabrics
Figure 11. Computed and measured FVF for rectangular spacer fabrics.

Figure 12. Predicted values of repeat unit weight for trapezoidal structures
with different heights and wall angles.
Figure 13. Predicted values of FVF for trapezoidal structures with different
heights and wall angles.

Figure 14. Predicted values of repeat unit weight for rectangular structures
with different heights and widths.
Figure 15. Predicted values of FVF for rectangular structures with different
heights and widths.

Prediction of repeat unit weight and FVF

The predicted results for repeat unit weight with increase in the height of trapezoidal structures, at
different wall angles have been shown in Figure 12. For trapezoidal structure with any wall angle,
weight of the repeat unit increases with increase in its height, but the gradients decrease with
increase in wall angle. In other words, the increase in repeat unit weight is highest for trapezoidal
spacer structure with wall angle of 30_, but is minimum for structures with wall
angle of 90_. It can also be seen that the repeat unit weight is minimum when the height is
minimum for any wall angle, whereas Figure 13 shows that when height is minimum, the FVF is
maximum for any given wall angle for a trapezoidal spacer structure. On the contrary, at higher
height values, FVF of structure with any wall angle is minimum, despite having higher repeat unit
weight compared to its counterparts.
Results for prediction of weight of repeat unit with change in height at five different cell widths of
the rectangular spacer structures are shown in Figure 14. With increase in the height, there is
concomitant increase in the weight of repeat unit at any cell width of the structure. The predicted
values of FVF for these structures are depicted in Figure 15.
Similar to trapezoidal structures, rectangular structures have highest FVF at minimum height
despite having lowest unit cell weight. The weight of repeat unit at maximum height increases
with increase in the cell width of the structures from 7.6 mm to 73.7 mm, whereas, the trend
followed by FVF of structures at maximum height is opposite. Such analysis enables the designer
to pre-determine the constructional parameters of a textile preform, having specific FVF, to be
used for developing composites exhibiting desired mechanical properties.

Conclusion
Geometrical modeling of 3D woven hollow fabrics was carried out to predict the weight of a repeat
unit and FVF. The model considered cell structural parameters, fabric structural
parameters of different sections in the structure, and the material properties. The computations
were performed using MATLABVR (version R2016b, MathWorks Inc.). The results
indicated good approximation of repeat unit weight and FVF of various structures, the prediction
accuracy being >90% in all cases. The disparity in the computed and experimental results can be
attributed to the measurement errors or slight variation in the warp weight due to slackening
or tightening of the warp yarns during pull-back operation of the warp. The model was also used
to predict the repeat unit weight and FVF of different hollow woven structures. It was found that
for trapezoidal and rectangular spacer structures, the weight of repeat unit decreased with reduction
in height. However, the FVF was observed to follow reverse trend. The same model can be used
to predict the repeat unit weight and FVF for fabric structures with any cell shape, having single
cell layer or multiple cell layers, with even or uneven surfaces. Hence, it can be claimed that this
numerical analysis is potent of estimating the constructional parameters of a textile preform to be
used for developing sandwich composites exhibiting desired FVF.

References-
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acer-fabric
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10. https://www.monofabrics.com/spacer-fabrics.html