Simulating and validating the draping of woven fiber reinforced polymers

Forming simulations are performed on woven textile composites using (a) an explicit finite element method and (b) a kinematic mapping scheme. Both methods are compared with experimental results that are obtained by determining the fiber orientations of thermoformed glass/PP woven composites. The goal of this study is to investigate whether the complex behaviour of woven textile composites can be approached by a kinematic mapping algorithm. It was found that the mapping approach severely fails in predicting the fiber reorientation that occurs during forming due to unrealistic initial conditions. The FEM simulation gives a reasonably good prediction of the fiber reorientation and seems the most promising technique in having good draping simulations.