2024/10/04 by Sarah E. Gonzalez, Michael S. Dimitriyev, Gonzalez, Sarah E. +5 · 2 citations
Materials Science · #FOS: Physical sciences #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Textile materials and evaluations
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2410.03940
openalex publication_date 2024/10/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate the mechanical behavior of jammed knitted fabrics, where geometric confinement leads to an initially stiff mechanical response that softens into low stiffness behavior with additional applied stress. We show that the jammed regime is distinguished by changes in yarn geometry and contact rearrangement that must occur to allow the individual stitches to stretch. These rearrangements allow for the relaxation of high residual contact forces that are present within jammed fabric, altering the low-strain response. We demonstrate that fabric jamming can be induced or reduced by changing either the constituent yarn or the fabric manufacturing parameters. Analysis of experimental samples shows that changing the "stitch size" in manufacturing affects both the in situ yarn radius and the length of yarn per stitch, both of which affect jamming.