Simulation and characterization of circular hexagonal braiding fabricstructure

Hexagonal braiding technology is a kind of state-of-the-art braiding method, which uses hexagonal horngears to driveyarn carriers and make yarns intertwined into fabrics. In terms of hexagonal braiding principles, the braiding parameterslike initial arrangement of yarn carriers, yarn number and horngears sequence were defined, and then the movementpaths of yarn carriers in hexagonal braiding process and stitch length were obtained, which could be converted intocoordinates on the xoy plane and the coordinates along z-axis. In that case, a group of spatial coordinates were got tocreate the yarn trajectories and fabric structures in Matlab. And then, B-spline curve was utilized to fit the yarntrajectories. Considering the compactness of hexagonal fabric, the coordinates conversion algorithm and conversionmatrix were utilized to optimize the fabric structure, so a more compact fabric structure was established. The braidingangle variation and volume fraction of fabric showed that after coordinates conversion the braiding angles became morestable than original fabric model, and the fiber volume fraction of fabric was improved too. So the fabric structure modelwas available to describe hexagonal fabric structure, which can offer the reference for the further study on properties ofhexagonal braiding technology and application of hexagonal braided fabric