Experimental investigation of friction behaviors of glass-fiber woven fabric

Friction between the fabric and tool surface is one of the most significant phenomena in manufacturing and application, and it mainly relates to the decisive contact behavior and the influence of tension and relative velocity. This article first investigates the contact behavior between the fabric and roller surface with a visualization method; then explores the influence of the tension and the relative velocity on the friction behavior of fabric/roller; and, finally, proposes a compound friction model considering the effects of tension and velocity and coupling the contact behavior of warp and weft for the friction behavior of glass-fiber woven fabric/roller. The results of a visualization investigation of the contact behavior reveal that the friction between the fabric and the roller is essentially the comprehensive result of the friction between the warp or weft at many fabric interlacing points and the roller. When the tension increases from 29.4 N to 196 N, the static and dynamic friction coefficients of the three fabric samples increased by 39.94%, 40.14%, 32.2%, 88.47%, 42.53%, and 38.17%, respectively. The effect of the velocity is affected by the fabric structure and tension conditions. According to our statistical results, the proposed model was found to agree well with the experimental results from capstan tests.