The Bending Behaviour of Plain-woven Fabrics Part III: The Case of Bilinear Thread-bending Behaviour and the Effect of Fabric Set

In the preceding paper, an elastica-based computational model of the bending behaviour of plain-woven fabrics assuming linear bending behaviour of the constituent threads, together with appropriate computational techniques, was described. In the present paper, bilinear thread-bending behaviour, as proposed by Huang, is considered. In the first model, the threads were considered to be unset, i.e., if released from the fabric, they would straighten out completely, but in the present paper varying degrees of set are considered for both the earlier model and the present model. The computational scheme developed requires the minimum interference from the user to solve the associated boundary-value problems. Contrary to the earlier work of Skelton and Schoppee, the model predicts an increase in contact forces at the thread-crossover points owing to increasing fabric curvature. This increase is found to be larger for fabrics with higher degrees of set and is in agreement with the observations made by G.M. Abbott...