FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF WEFT KNITTED COMPOSITES

In the present paper mechanical properties of knitted fiber reinforced polymer laminates are investigated experimentally and numerically, using unspecialized FEA. For this purpose the material unit cell was observed and its stress-strain statement was simulated using ANSYS commercial software depending on applied external loads. As example tensile properties (namely elastic modulus) in two principal directions of epoxy matrix E-glass knitted fabric laminated composites were obtained. The numerically predicted composite material mechanical parameters were compared with the experimental results and with the data obtained from previously performed analysis based on FEA software Solid Works. The numerically obtained longitudinal and transverse modulus comparison with the performed experiments has shown the ability to predict the material properties with reasonable accuracy.