| Textile materials are engineered to meet different specifications depending on the area in which they are used. For protective clothing, fabrics must be designed to function as a barrier to hazardous chemicals, excess heat, or impact. Liquid penetration into fibrous materials plays an important role in several applications such as medical textiles, filtration, resin impregnation of fibers for composites; penetration pressure of the liquid is always the key factor for protection performance of the barrier textile material. The primary objectives of this research have been to develop a numerical model that simulates the fluid penetration and flow through fabric structures, the effects of liquid viscosity, surface tension and contact angle; and to develop a test methodology to validate the numerical model.; The test method was designed to measure the penetration pressure and flow rates under changing liquid pressures. Using this test method, five different materials were evaluated with five different solutions. For determination of properties of sample and challenge liquid, pore size distribution analysis, fabric thickness, surface tension and viscosity measurements were made. The material-liquid contact angle was also determined. It has been shown that while surface tension, pore size and contact angle determines the penetration pressure, flow rates were highly dependent on the liquid viscosity.; Two numerical models were created based on capillary model; one had capillaries with uniform diameter, the other had capillaries composed of sections with different diameters. The models have been shown to be consistent with the experimental results. |
