The variation in Poisson’s ratio caused by interactions between core and wrap in helical composite auxetic yarns

Materials with a negative Poisson’s ratio are referred to as auxetic. One recently invented example of this is the helical auxetic yarn (HAY). This has been proved to successfully exhibit auxetic behaviour both as a yarn and when incorporated into fabric. The HAY is based on a double-helix geometry where a relatively stiffer ‘wrap’ is helically wound around a compliant core fibre. This paper studies the effect of the interaction between the core and the wrap fibre on the auxetic behaviour of the HAY, including the effect of their relative moduli. Assessment of the Poisson’s ratio of the HAYs has revealed that an elevated difference in component moduli causes the wrap fibre embedding itself into the core fibre, thus decreasing the auxetic effect. Careful determination of an optimum core–wrap moduli ratio where the ratio is high enough to yield an auxetic effect and low enough to prevent the core-indentation effect can lead to the fabrication of a yarn with largest negative Poisson’s ratio.