A Study of Creating Integrated 3D Open Box Fabric Using Conventional Weaving Technology

Abstract

Since the late 1960's, 3D textile composites have proved their significant contributions in many engineering areas, including advanced textile composites for the aerospace and automotive industries, providing high performance in various mechanical properties. The efforts at inventing different types of reinforcing structures have been continuous. This research focuses on the box shaped integrated 3D fabric reinforcements, which are much needed but not yet available by weaving.This research aims to establish a procedure for the design and manufacture of a prototype 3D open box structure. Theoretical investigations and practical realisation were jointly conducted to produce this design and manufacture procedure in three stages. At the first stage, the principle of transforming the box structure from 3D to 2D by using origami paper folding principle was developed in order to adapt the 3D box structure to conventional weaving technology. The use of origami principle helped to establish a procedure for flattening 3D box structures to 2D flattened forms, define the selection criteria of the optimal flattened 2D box structure, and derive a series of 3D open box structures in configurations that can be adapted to conventional weaving technology. At the second stage, a thorough investigation was carried out in segmenting the 2D flattened forms, determining the technical details for conventional weaving. During this stage, the method of segmenting the complex 2D box structure to a practical scheme in accord with weaving technique was established. The design scheme was practically demonstrated through an example 3D open box and the weave design of the designated box was generated. As a result, a 3D open box fabric was successfully manufactured with integrated structure and shape accuracy. The third stage of the research sees the evaluation of the 3D box fabric in terms of mechanical properties of the box fabric. The data collected from the tests can be used for further modifications and improvements of box shaped fabric reinforcements. Accordingly, the significant achievements from this research are at least three fold. The first is the successful implement of the origami principle to have devised a method for weaving 3D open box fabrics as composite reinforcements. The second achievement is the establishment of a procedure for applying the structural parameters to the weaving of the flattened box fabric. Design and evaluation of the mechanical properties of the folds and joints are the third contribution of this research.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Xiaogang Chen (Supervisor) & Lindsey Taylor (Supervisor)