An Efficient Shell Element Based Approach to Modeling the Impact Response of Fabrics

An efficient shell element based computational model is developed to capture the mechanical response of fabrics. The approach considers a single yarn crossover as the basic building block (unit-cell) of the fabric panel and uses a specially formulated shell element within LS-DYNA to capture the essential features of the membrane response of this unit-cell accounting for both geometrical and material characteristics of the yarns. The shell element so developed is used to simulate the impact response of single and multi-ply packs of Kevlar® 129 fabric. The predictions are successfully compared with the measurements obtained from instrumented ballistic impact experiments.