Quantitative analysis of monofilament architecture in three-dimensional mesh fabric using micro X-ray computed tomography

Three-dimensional mesh fabric has been successfully installed in ventilated car seats due to its excellent cushioning and ventilating properties originating from a sandwich monofilament architecture. In this paper, a detailed structural analysis is presented of a 10.3 mm thick three-dimensional mesh fabric to better understand the structural features and mechanical behavior. A continuous monofilament architecture was reconstructed by using a filament centerline tracing technique and micro X-ray computed tomography data. The curvature, torsion, and length of a unit cell extracted from the monofilament architecture were calculated. Inflection points from the curvature and torsion curves were used to divide the continuous monofilament architecture into separate monofilament loops and spacer monofilaments. The monofilament loops are found to have similar maximum curvatures at their intermediate points between 1.5 and 1.8 mm(-1), but the spacer monofilaments have discrepant maximum curvatures close to the ends between 0.3 and 0.75 mm(-1). The monofilament loops are sinusoidally arranged with a sinusoidal torsion distribution at their ends ranging from 0.2 and 0.9 mm(-1) due to the stretching and heat setting process. Spacer monofilament torsions vary nonlinearly from negative to positive and the maximum torsions are between 0.45 and 0.9 mm(-1). The monofilament loops have a length of 3.07-3.90 mm, while the spacer monofilaments have a length of 10.94-12.54 mm. Spacer monofilaments within the unit cell differ in curvature, torsion, and length, so their contributions to fabric compression resistance should be different.