Mechanics and mechanisms of tear resistance of woven fabrics

Modeling and calculating strain energy are among the most important steps in evaluating the mechanics and mechanical of the tearing process for woven textile materials. In this paper, the parameters controlling the mechanisms of crack propagation in woven textiles have been investigated. A new model, that describes the relationship between tearing energy and fabrics’ properties, has been established and validated. Several plain and twill woven fabrics made of cotton, polyester/cotton blend and polyester are examined to evaluate the proposed model using tongue tear and tensile central crack tear tests. By studying the variation of the critical strain energy with the yarn breaking force and slippage force (FYB/FS) ratio, the effect of the crack propagation mechanisms of the fabric tearing behavior was analyzed. This model provides very useful information on tearing mechanism of woven textiles and is a useful tool for the in-depth study of the tearing phenomena of nonwoven woven textiles and for the development of new models involving the tearing process. The results showed that experimental data are consistent with theoretical values. This good correlation suggests that the proposed model is able to accurately describe the behavior of the textiles in tearing tests.