Deformation characteristics of flexible PU-coated multi-axial warp knitted fabrics under uniaxial tensile

Based on the characteristics of high tenacity, low density, flexible design, the coated fabric has emerged as a promising construct for tensile test. Here, it reports the deformation mechanism of a PU-coated multi-axial warp-knitted fabric under uniaxial tensile via a digital image correlation system. Specimens produced by us are chase in three fibre-reinforced directions namely 0°, 45° and 90°, respectively. The result shows that the crease does not have an effect on the deformations in the small deformation range (strain < 5%), and the deformation was evidently occurred near the fixed end lags because of the faster movement of specimen at the loading end, and the transverse shrinking at the edges is faster than that in the middle of the specimen. In the large deformation range, the strain fields are inconsistent at the same displacement revealing that the deformations of this kind of flexible coated fabric is in-homogeneous under tensile.