Experimental validation of a foldable kinematic fabric structure

The inherent flexibility of fabrics makes them a very suitable construction for lightweight adaptable structures.

This paper focuses on the experimental verification of a kinematic fabric prototype by comparing the experimental force and strain results to the predictions made by numerical model utilising a linear elastic orthotropic material model.

The conducted comparison showed large differences in absolute values for both forces and strains.
However, the general behaviour of the prototype was approximated quite well and most deviations
could be attributed to the numerical model not taking into account the compensation applied to the fabric nor the permanent deformation of the boundary belts.

Further research on this topic will focus on modelling the prototype using more advanced material
models attempting to increase the accuracy of the numerical predictions. However, the research
presented in this paper already shows that even simple analysis methods can be used to design
kinematic fabric structures to some extent.

Publication year:2016

Keywords:kinematic structures, fabric sstructures, adaptable structures, numerical simulation, experimental validation, digital image correlation