Finite element modelling of SMA textiles: superelastic behaviour

The paper describes guidelines for building a finite element model of a unit cell of a textile made of superelastic NiTi wires and illustrates the application of the model for woven and knitted textiles. The goal of the analysis is prediction of the tensile diagram of the textile based on the fabric structure and the superelastic tensile diagram of the wires. The differences between the superelastic behaviour of the fabrics and that of individual wires are discussed. Predictions for a knitted NiTi fabric are compared with experimental data.