Prediction of bending rigidity for laminated weft knitted fabric with adhesive interlining

The purpose of this study is to predict bending rigidity of laminated weft knitted fabric using three prediction methods and to determine their suitability for predicting. The methods are as follows: Method 1: the laminate theory using bending rigidities and thicknesses of components, Method 2: an equation derived from the laminate theory taken into account the tensile and in-plane compressive moduli of components, Method 3: an equation in consideration of the position of the neutral axis in bending on a face fabric. Six weft knitted fabrics and ten adhesive interlinings, sixty laminated composites with those combinations were used. Tensile properties and bending rigidities, thicknesses of samples were measured. The other necessary parameters for the prediction were obtained by additional experiments and calculation. It was found that the results by Method 3 showed the closest agreements with experimental ones. It is due to the relative positions of the neutral axes for all knitted fabric samples are not in the centroid. It became clear that the position must be taken into account for calculating bending rigidities of laminated knitted fabric with adhesive interlining.