Prediction of the thermo-elastic properties of knitted structural composites using FEM

It is a very important and complex task to estimate the thermo-elastic properties of a textile structural composite. The finite element method (FEM) was used to forecast the orthotropic thermo-elastic properties of a composite reinforced by glass fiber knitted fabric. In order to define the final 3-D configuration of the loop reinforcing structure, the interactions between the adjacent loops, the large displacement and the contact elements without friction were considered. The values predicted were compared with the experimental results.