Compressive characteristics of multi-layer warp-knitted spacer fabrics with various interfaces conditions

Abstract

In this paper, three kinds of warp knitted spacer fabrics (WKSFs) with different thickness were superposed in different ways. Furthermore, the multi-layer WKSFs were treated by hot-melting nonwovens. The aim of the study is to compare the compressive characteristics of multi-layer WKSFs with different lamination methods and various interfaces conditions. The results show that the compressive stress-strain curves have a tendency during single flat plate compression, which could be divided into three stages: linear compression stage, yield stage and crushing stage. Due to the influence of the number of layers, the yield stage also could be divided into three small stages. While the stress-strain curves of some WKSFs treated with hot-melting nonwovens are slightly different from those of untreated WKSFs. In the fatigue compression test, all multi-layer WKSFs directly transition from the linear compression stage to the crushing stage. Compared with multi-layer WKSFs untreated, multi-layer WKSFs treated with hot-melting nonwovens have less deformation under the same load. In addition, the energy absorbed by WKSFs and the compressive resilience would be increased with the increase of the first layer thickness of the multi-layer WKSF.