Braiding is one of the most common technique employed for the manufacture of fabrics and ropes. It is also commonly used to produce near-net shaped preforms for advanced fibre reinforced composites. This paper presents an explicit finite element approach to create and simulate the braiding process for the virtual manufacture of 2D braids. The process starts from the definition of an analytical function which describes the movement of the carriers on a braiding track plate. Models of idealised Maypole-type braiding machines are built and used to shape virtual yarns into braids. This procedure can be used in a parameter control fashion, to optimise or to create virtual braided structures, which can serve as input for other structural analyses. It is emphasised that multiple cylinders are required for the modelling of a multifilament yarn to achieve better correlation with the experimental results. A parametric study is presented to investigate the effect of the number of virtual cylinders to represent a real yarn and the shape of the final braid. Excellent correlation was found between the virtual models and the experimental results when comparing the braid angle and yarn width.

中文翻译：

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编织过程的有限元模拟。

编织是用于制造织物和绳索的最常用技术之一。它也常用于生产高级纤维增强复合材料的近净形瓶坯。本文提出了一种显式的有限元方法，用于创建和模拟2D编织线虚拟制造的编织过程。该过程从分析功能的定义开始，该功能描述了载体在编织轨道板上的运动。建立理想化的Maypole型编织机的模型，并将其用于将虚拟纱线成型为辫子。可以以参数控制方式使用此过程，以优化或创建虚拟编织结构，该结构可以用作其他结构分析的输入。要强调的是，复丝纱线的建模需要多个圆柱体，以实现与实验结果更好的相关性。进行了参数研究，以研究虚拟圆柱体数量代表真实纱线的效果以及最终编织物的形状。在比较编织角和纱线宽度时，虚拟模型与实验结果之间发现极好的相关性。