Large deformation modelling of tight woven fabric under high air pressure

Technical textiles used in airbag are usually in tight structure and subject to high air pressure in through- thickness direction. The pressure can deform fabric with changing its properties such as porosity and air permeability. This paper proposes an analytical approach to predict the out-of-plane deformation of tight fabric by analogy with membrane deformation. The model integrates the energies happened on the deformed fabric, that is, fabric strain energy, bending energy, and external work done. The fabric deformation can be predicted by minimizing the total fabric energy. The prediction was validated by experiment for fabric profile and the maximum displacement, and a good agreement was found for the cases of two typical fabrics. A sensitivity study shows that Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio can affect the fabric deformation significantly