Investigating mathematical methods for high-throughput prediction of the critical buckling load of non-uniform wool fibers

The sensation of prickle from textile garments is directly related to the force that a fibre protruding from the fabric surface can exert on the skin without buckling – its critical buckling load (CBL). Finite element modelling (FEM) has previously been used to predict CBLs fibres which have variable along-fibre morphology, such as wool. We investigated alternative methods for calculating CBLs, which were potentially faster and less computationally intensive than FEM, with a view to high-throughput analysis of fibres. The analytical methods that we tested were found to be either inadequate in their formulation or prone to instability in some cases. A non-FEM numerical approach method appeared to be more accurate and reliable than analytical or earlier FEM implementations, but very slow to compute in comparison to analytical methods.