Modified rheological model for analysis of compression of nonwoven fabrics

A new rheological model is presented that describes the compressional behavior of nonwoven fabrics. In this model, a nonwoven is considered an elastic/viscoplastic material called a Bingham material. To reflect the plastic deformation, the Saint-Venant element of the specific characteristic is introduced. This element reflects the dissipation of energy due to the friction, Which depends on the level of reconstruction of the structure of the nonwoven material under compression. The model is verified experimentally with nineteen different nonwovens. A comparative analysis of the compression curves determined theoretically and experimentally indicates a high level of correlation between both data sets.