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Mechanical and structural characterisation of a 3D warp-knitted spacer fabric subjected to compression

3D warp-knitted spacer fabrics show a growing importance, especially in cushioning or impact damping applications. The use of 3D fabrics saturated with fluids improves their impact damping capabilities and, in this case, evaluating the variation of material’s permeability with compression level is of great importance. In the past few years, our efforts were focused on evaluating this variation with the use of complex experimental devices, an approach that has proven to be very useful and thoroughly, but also time and resource consuming. Through this new initiative we aim to make a step further in our attempt to model the behaviour of dry or imbibed 3D warp-knitted spacer fabrics by considering their complex internal structure. A 3D model was built, based on a CT scan of a commercially available 3D fabric, which allowed us to simulate using the finite element method the structure’s response to different compression levels and conditions.