Metallic Braided Structures: The Mechanical Modeling

In this paper, the mechanical behavior of braided metallic structures used in the pipe industry was investigated in both ways numerically and experimentally in order to find the cheapest and the most accurate way to simulate their complex behavior. Therefore, two experimental tests were established to show the tension and the pressure expansion behaviors, then, several finite element approaches were developed and compared with the experiment, which are: a micro‐scale model where each metallic wire is considered as an independent three‐dimensional structure, a meso‐scale model where each group of wires was modeled as a continuum material with equivalent mechanical behavior, and a macro‐scale model where the whole structure is considered as a fully homogeneous material. And it is shown that the homogenization is more suitable for small displacements but for complex behaviors the meso‐ and the micro‐scale models are more reliable.