Deformation behavior of auxetic woven fabric based on re-entrant hexagonal geometry in different tensile directions

Auxetic woven fabrics made of non-auxetic yarns have gained the interest of textile scientists in recent times. Such fabrics have already been produced and investigated for their negative Poisson's ratio (NPR) effect in two principle directions. However, the NPR effect of these fabrics in different biased tensile directions has not been studied. In particular, the influence of repeated tensile loading on the NPR effect retention ability of fabric has not been explored yet. Therefore, this paper aims to report the NPR effect of auxetic woven fabric in different tensile directions and the influence of repeating tensile cycle tests on its NPR effect retention ability. The auxetic woven fabric is firstly fabricated based on a re-entrant hexagonal geometrical structure by using elastic and non-elastic yarns, and then subjected to single and repeating tensile tests in five different tensile directions, which include two principle directions and three biased directions. It is found that the NPR effect is largely dependent upon the tensile direction and the number of repeating tensile cycles.