Numerical simulation of knitted fabric material with multi-scale finite element method

Due to complexity of microstructure of knitted fabric, there is little related work reported in literatures. With the aid of the micromechanical model of knitted fabric which characterizes the special properties of knitted fabric, the draping and buckling of a square knitted fabric sheet putting on a circular desk are successfully simulated by multiscale finite element methods (MsFEM) and traditional finite element method. The knitted fabric sheet is discretized with 8-nodes shell elements, which are designed for finite deformation and suffice to describe the large rotation of knitted fabric sheet during draping. For the sake of simplicity, the nodes of the knitted fabric sheet on the edge of the desk are assumed to fix. The simulation results of MsFEM are compared with the experimental ones, and in good agreement with the observations. The result demonstrates that the advantages of the multiscale finite element method for numerical simulation of knitted fabric material, i.e. significantly reducing computational efforts, and improving the accuracy of the solutions.