New Development of Cellular Textile Composites for Energy-Absorption Applications

The design and fabrication of a new class of knitted textile composites, cellular textile composites, are described in this paper, based on our extensive studies on the large deformation mechanisms and energy-absorption behavior of these kinds of materials. The material system and the reinforced fabric architecture are specially selected so as to make the cellular textile composite have better mechanical properties than its components, fiber or matrix. The cell configuration and cell pattern are designed and optimized to achieve higher energy-absorption capacity. The effects of geometric parameters, such as cell height, diameter ratio of cell-top to cell-bottom, semiapical angle of the flat-topped conical shell, cell wall area and cell density are experimentally and analytically studied, leading to an optimal design of the cell geometry and cell distribution.