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Lightweight, variable solidity knitted parachute fabric

A parachute fabric for aerodynamic decelerator applications is described. The fabric will permit deployment of the decelerator at high altitudes and low density conditions. The fabric consists of lightweight, highly open, circular knitted parachute fabric with ribbon-like yarns to assist in air deflection

The influence of mechanical action on felting shrinkage of wool fabric in the tumble dryer

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Felting shrinkage of untreated wool fabric occurs easily during tumble drying. Mechanical action applied on fabrics plays a significant part in felting shrinkage of wool fabric. In general, the more severe the mechanical action of a washing or drying machine, the more rapid is felting shrinkage. However, both the degree of mechanical action applied on fabric and the type of mechanical action could influence felting shrinkage of untreated wool fabric. In the current study, fabric movement and felting shrinkage of untreated wool fabric at different rotation speeds of the drum in a tumble dryer under no heating condition were studied. Based on the different fabric movements at different rotation speeds of the tumble drum, the extent of impact force and rubbing force at different rotation speeds were assessed through their ranking. The total mechanical action applied on the fabric was expressed by the percentage of thread removal of “thread removal fabric” during drying process. The results showed that lowest mechanical force on fabrics could be achieved when the higher rotation speed of the drum was used for drying wool fabrics in tumble dryers, and it could prevent wool felting shrinkage. It was also found that falling of the fabric followed by impact to the drum wall caused less felting shrinkage than sliding with rubbing between fabrics. Therefore, falling movement of fabric could be a potential method to dry wool fabric in drying machines without causing severe felting shrinkage

Effects of fabric counts and weave designs on the properties of laminated woven kenaf carbon fibre reinforced epoxy hybrid composites

The effects of different fabric materials namely weave designs (plain and satin) and fabric counts (5 × 5 and 6 × 6) on the properties of laminated woven kenaf/carbon fibre reinforced epoxy hybrid composites were evaluated. The hybrid composites were fabricated from two types of fabric, i.e., woven kenaf that was made from a yarn of 500tex and carbon fibre, by using vacuum infusion technique and epoxy resin as matrix. The panels were tested for tensile, flexural, and impact strengths. The results have revealed that plain fabric is more suitable than satin fabric for obtaining high tensile and impact strengths. Using a fabric count of 5 × 5 has generated composites that are significantly higher in flexural modulus as compared to 6 × 6 which may be attributed to their structure and design. The scanned electron micrographs of the fractured surfaces of the composites demonstrated that plain woven fabric composites had better adhesion properties than satin woven fabric composites, as indicated by the presence of notably lower amount of fibre pull out

A non-coaxial critical-state model for sand accounting for fabric anisotropy and fabric evolution

Soil fabric and its evolving nature underpin the non-coaxial, anisotropic mechanical behaviour of sand, which has not been adequately recognized by past studies on constitutive modelling. A novel three-dimensional constitutive model is proposed to describe the non-coaxial behaviour of sand within the framework of anisotropic critical state theory. The model features a plastic potential explicitly expressed in terms of a fabric tensor reflecting the anisotropy of soil structure and an evolution law for it. Under monotonic loading, the fabric evolution law characterizes a general trend of the fabric change to gradually become co-directional with the loading direction before the soil reaches the critical state. When sand is subjected to rotation of principal stress directions, the fabric evolves with the plastic strain increment which is further dependent on the current stress state, the current fabric and the direction of stress increment. During its evolution, the fabric rotates towards the loading direction and reaches a final degree of anisotropy proportional to a normalized stress ratio. With the incorporation of fabric and fabric evolution, the non-coaxial sand behaviour can be easily captured, and the model response converges to be coaxial at the critical state when the stress and fabric are co-directional. The model has been used to simulate the mechanical behaviour of sand subjected to either monotonic loading or continuous rotation of principal stress directions. The model predictions agree well with test data

Cyclic Loading and Fabric Evolution in Sand: A Constitutive Investigation

An anisotropic plasticity model is proposed to describe the effect of fabric and fabric evolution on the cyclic behaviour of sand within the framework of anisotropic critical state theory. The model employs a cone-shaped bounding surface in the deviatoric stress space and a yield cap perpendicular to the mean stress axis to describe sand behaviour in constant-mean-stress shear and constant-stress-ratio compression, respectively. The model considers a fabric tensor characterizing the internal structure of sand associated with the void space system which evolves with plastic deformation. The fabric evolution law is assumed to render the fabric tensor to become co-directional with the loading direction tensor and to reach a constant magnitude of unit at the critical state. In constant-stress-ratio compres-sion, the final degree of anisotropy is proportional to a normalized stress ratio. An anisotropic variable defined by a joint invariant of the fabric tensor and the loading direction tensor is employed to describe the fabric effect on sand behaviour in constant-mean-stress monotonic and cyclic shear. Good comparison is found between the model simulations and test results on Toyoura sand in both monotonic and cyclic loadings with a single set of parameters

Locus model for space-time fabric and quantum indeterminacies

A simple locus model for the space-time fabric is presented and is compared with quantum foam and random walk models. The induced indeterminacies in momentum are calculated and it is shown that these space-time fabric indeterminacies are, in most cases, negligible compared with the quantum mechanical indeterminacies. This result restricts the possibilities of an experimental observation of the space-time fabric