Analysis and experiment of deformation and draping characteristics in hemisphere preforming for plain woven fabrics

Abstract Currently, the analytical analysis cannot describe the deformation and draping behavior in the hemisphere preforming for the plain woven fabric, especially considering the fabric deformation outside the hemisphere and the effect of the configuration parameters. Thus, an analytical analysis was established to characterize the sliding and shearing in the typical hemisphere preforming for the plain woven fabric. The experiments were conducted, and the root mean square values for the sliding and shearing between the analytical and experimental results are small, demonstrating the effectiveness of the analytical analysis. With the reduction of the corner radius of the die and the gap between the punch and die, the sliding ratio is larger than 1.0, indicating the yarn sliding is increased. In addition, the shearing deformation in the quasi tensile region is still generated and reaches a maximum value of 4.5° both in analytical prediction and in experimental measurements. Moreover, the analytical analysis is capable of characterizing the draping degree, which is proved to be non-linearly increased with the punch depth. The reduction of the gap and corner radius enlarges the draped region, namely, improves the draping degree. The analytical analysis and experiments gain the insight into the deformation and draping mechanism of the plain woven fabric.