An image based method for characterising the mechanical behaviour of fabrics. Part I: The measurement of in-plane tensile behaviour

The characterisation of fabric mechanical properties including tensile, bending, shearing, compressing and fracture was investigated by an image based method. In this paper, an in-plane strain-stress measurement system was built using the Kawabata Evaluation System (KES) attached to a set of image digitalisation and analysis modules. The trajectory tracking method based on image analysis was used to calculate the displacement and distortion of reference points printed on a fabric surface under a certain load, so as to determine the displacement and strain distribution field of the specimen. The two-dimensional displacement distribution field and related parameters were used to define the in-plane deformation of fabrics instead of the traditional one-dimensional strain-stress curve. The relationship between strain values determined by the Kawabata Evaluation System and those obtained by the image-based method was analysed, and the experimental results show that the image-based method is effective and simple to characterise both the global and local strains two dimensionally.