Journal of Fiber Bioengineering and Informatics 6:4 (2013) 349367

doi:10.3993/jfbi12201302

Textile Materials and Structures with Negative Poissons

Ratio An Overview
Ming Zhou a , Zhaoqun Du a,b,,
a Key

Guanyi Lu a

Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua
University, Shanghai 201620, China

b Engineering

Research Center of Industrial Textiles, Ministry of Education, Donghua University

Shanghai 201620, China

Abstract
Material with negative Poissons ratio is a kind of new structural material with special physical properties
and geometric structure, which undergoes a transverse expansion when stretched in longitudinal direction
and a transverse contraction when compressed. Compared with common textile materials, auxetic
textile materials are significantly different in terms of thier structures and properties. Thereof, reviews
on auxetic materials of foam, polymer and textile materials were investigated, and the mechanism
of the dilation property was analyzed and obtained in this paper. It is found that these auxetic
materials are dependent on the microstructures with reentrant structures or rotating structures. The
analysis of the structure of materials with negative Poissons ratio can contribute to the new textile
material technology and new functional textile products, such as magnetic-shielding fabrics and waterrepellent/wind-proof fabrics. It is also helpful in infrastructure, aerospace engineering, biomedical
engineering and environmental engineering.
Keywords: Negative Poissons Ratio; Fabric; Fibre; Polymer; Foam

Introduction

Poissons ratio is defined as the negative transverse strain divided by the axial strain in the direction of stretching force. Common materials undergo a transverse contraction when stretched
in one direction and a transverse expansion when compressed, which are called positive Poissons
ratio of materials, such as Poissons ratio of rubber is 0.5. In contrast, some materials undergo
a transverse expansion when stretched in one direction and a transverse contraction when compressed, which are called negative Poisson ratio material, also called the auxetic materials, such
as Poissons ratio of yellow single crystal iron ore is 0.14. Poissons ratio is generally in the
range of 1 to 0.5 for isotropic continuous materials and Poissons ratio of common foam varies
from 0.1 to 0.4 [1].

Corresponding author.
Email address: duzq@dhu.edu.cn (Zhaoqun Du).

19408676 / Copyright 2013 Binary Information Press & Textile Bioengineering and Informatics Society
December 2013

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Different Poissons ratios affect materials performance significantly. For tensile fracture analysis, transverse cross section of positive Poissons ratio material decreases gradually when stretched,
and the fracture always occurs at middle section for transverse contraction; while transverse cross
section of negative Poissons ratio material increases gradually when stretched. Although the
fracture opposition often generates at middle section, it is for transverse expansion. Thereof,
the tension fracture analysis becomes much more complex. Meanwhile, for compression, positive
Poissons ratio materials are easily crushed when their section become flat and density descends;
while materials section with negative Poissons ratio becomes tougher for being assembled to
high density when compressed, such as human joints skin, cow nipple skin and foam. Compared
with common materials, auxetic materials with negative Poissons ratio have higher shear modulus, higher storage modulus as well as have excellent bulk elastic modulus and crush resistance
property [1]. Materials with negative Poissons ratios have been theoretically verified in 1940s,
and developed in recent 30 years as foam materials. It is a kind of new structural material and
research in this textile field is also happening for nearly 20 years. Textile products have made
great contributions into aerospace, while new functions and application of textile materials are
required more strictly, especially for magnetic-shielding fabric. Thereof, if the above kind of fabric
is woven from negative Poissons steel yarns, the shielding effect is greatly improved for space
between fibres and yarns being expanded in tensile application. So, it is necessary to have a good
review on negative Poissons ratio of materials, and to provide new concepts related to fabric
products.

2
2.1

Auxetic Foam and Polymer

Auxetic Foam

Lakes firstly reported polyester- polyurethane foam with negative Poissons ratio made in 1987
[2]. It describes that the conventional foam is compressed in three orthogonal directions, and
can be changed from positive Poissons ratio to negative Poissons ratio by being heated in a
mold with a temperature slightly above the softening temperature of the foam material. The
microstructure of the foam materials showed that there exists difference between positive and
negative Poissons ratio, where the former structure of foam is an open structure, while the latter
structure of foam is compressed into reentrant structure with negative Poissons ratio, as seen in
Fig. 1. The research results lay the foundation for the development of negative Poissons ratio
polymer. Furthermore, Brandel and Lakes also made three-dimensional reentrant microstructure
of polyethylene foam by regulating the thermo-mechanical process of common polyethylene foam
[3].
Park also obtained negative Poissons ratio copper foam with three-dimensional reentrant structure using multistage compression method (orthogonal directions) [4]. Robert transformed the
open cell structure into negative Poissons ratio polyisocyanurate foam with three-dimensional
reentrant microstructure by controlling compression process [5]. The effects of reentrant structure sizes of these foams were not concerned with, which were the shackles of producing applicable
negative Poissons foam. Evans analyzed effects on the negative Poissons ratio structure and size
of the heating temperature, time, and volume compression ratio and process parameters. It was
found that small-size reentrant structure foam could be fabricated by short heating time and low
compression load, and large-size reentrant structure foam could be prepared by long heating time

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z
y

Fig. 1: Negative Poissons ratio foam pattern

Fig. 2: Auxetic Ti-6Al-4V foam cell structure

and high compression load [6].

The above work mainly focuses on the design and preparation of the auxetic material for its
special geometrical structure. Thereof, many researchers dedicate to performance investigation.
Scarpa and Cadamagnani analyzed unique mechanical properties, acoustic properties, electromagnetic properties, and static and dynamic performance of auxetic polyurethane foam [7-10]. Li did
compression and bending experiments with different Ti-6Al-4V alloy foams in reentrant structure.
It showed that the smaller the reentrant angle and the side length ratio H/L (Fig. 2) is, the
greater the foams average compression stiffness, bending stiffness and the energy absorption is
[11]. Smith used the idealized 2D model (in Fig. 2) to report a novel mechanism for generating
auxetic behavior in reticulated foams-missing rib foam model [12], as seen in Fig. 3, where the
broken ribs of the foam showed negative Poissons ratio effect.
These auxetic foam materials including polyester, copper, polyethylene, polyisocyanurate and
polyurethane foam can be obtained by adjusting the process parameters, where the essence is
dependent on their microstructure being reentrant polyhedral structure, as shown in Fig. 4. It
includes 24-sided polyhedron with reentrant structure abstracted as six-sided body with lever unit
structure, the lever units are concaved. The mechanism of auxetic materials are attributed to the
facts that lever units outwardly unfold and the cell expands when the foam is stretched; while
the lever units continues to fold inwardly and the cell contracts when the foam is compressed.
However, auxetic foams have lower strength and stiffness, and its auxetic effects will disappear
when we enhance it with reinforcement [1].

1500 m

600 m

Fig. 3: SEM photos of missing-rib foam

Fig. 4: Reentrant structure cell of 24-sided

polyhedron

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Auxetic Polymer

With rapid development of negative Poissons ratio foam and the special relations between structure and properties, researchers on polymers also have great interest in designing macromolecular
chains with auxetic effects. Evans commenced to establish highly anisotropic microstructure
model of PTFE polymer which consisted of inward-concave micelles and buckling fibrils. When
applied tensile force along the fibrils axial direction, the concave micelles are pulled up by connecting fibrils and the subject deforms transversely and expands in lateral direction, as seen in
Fig. 5 (a) and Fig. 5 (b). And the micelles are tied by fibrils to rotate vertically in the tensile
direction which is shown in Fig. 5 (c). Under continuous stretch, the micelles rotate outward and
show full transverse expansion, as shown in Fig. 5 (d). Researchers successfully prepared negative
Poissons ratio PTEF polymer with rotating structure in principle [13, 14]. Furthermore, Evans
reported a manufacturing method to make ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene with negative Poissons ratio micro-porous, and found the maximum hard negative Poissons ratio synthetic
material based on the analysis of the static and dynamic modulus [15].
y
x

y
x

Fibril

Micelle
Micelle
Fibril
(a) Initial dense microstructure

(b) Tension in fibrils causing transverse displacement

of micelles and lateral expansion

y
x

Fibril

Micelle
Fibril
Micelle
(c) Rotation of nodes producing further
lateral expansion

(d) Fully expanded condition

Fig. 5: Schematic diagram of structural transform of PTFE polymer under tension

In addition, Evans designed plane concave molecular structure with negative Poissons ratio
which is similar to the shape of the three-dimensional reentrant honeycomb in 1995 (Fig. 6) [16].
The plane concave structure contains a benzene ring in each corner vertices, where neighboring benzene rings are linked by carbon atoms. When it is stretched along the carbon chains
longitudinal direction, the whole molecule is to expand along the lateral dilatation with auxetic
effect.
According to the principle of plane concave structure, Pickles introduced the optimization
of manufacturing parameters to prepare auxetic polyethylene from three aspects: compression
process, the sintering temperature and time, and the ratio of extrusion conditions [17-19]. Hui
Wan et al gave a theoretical analysis of negative Poissons ratios of auxetic honeycombs (in Fig. 7)
by a large deflection model [20]. K. L. Alderson acquired ultra high molecular weight polyethylene
(UHMWPE) with negative Poissons ratio according to the manufacturing technology of auxetic
materials in 1996. Webber also obtained auxetic UHMWPE with Poissons ratios being 4.07
and 0.32 as shown in Fig. 7 [21-24].

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C
C

C
C

C
C
C

Fig. 6: High benzene polymer molecule with reentrant structure

30 m

29 m

Fig. 7: SEM picture of UHMWPE with Poissons ratio as 4.07 and as 0.32
Andrew Alderson presented a new method for the production of thin flat and curved auxetic
foam sheets by uniaxial compression. Similarly, when a uniaxial compression of 4060% in combination with shear was applied into the curved foams, the auxetic behavior was due to crumpling
of the pores through the foam thickness, and curved foams with Poissons ratio being 3 and the
flat sheets with Poissons ratio being 0.3 were fabricated [25].
In the field of auxetic polymer research, Wei designed auxetic copolymer with alternating
molecular network formed by hard segments and soft segment, introduced the centipede-like,
double foot centipede-like auxetic polymers and self-assembly auxetic polymer network formed
by single-arrow, double-arrow-like small molecules which were assembled through hydrogen bonds.
According to supra molecular structure in Fig. 8, he presented the calculation models of polymer

Fig. 8: Model of hard and soft segments of identical copolymers

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with normal or negative Poissons ratio of auxetic polymers, and also had the theory analysis of
elastic properties of composite ellipsoid materials with negative Poissons ratio; where a plane
concave microstructure with theory negative Poissons ratio being 11.86 was obtained [26-31].
Bai designed an inward rotary foldable isotactic polypropylene with auxetic performance. It
is composed of crystal structure and subcrystal structure, and their initial angel is 80 or 100 .
When the isotactic polypropylene is stretched, the subcrystals rotate and the subject shows
auxetic effects for the angel between subcrystals and crystals transforming to 90 (Fig. 9) [32].
Crystal
Tension
Subcrystal

Fig. 9: Rotation model of parent lamellae and daughter lamellae under tension
Yang adopted blending method to construct auxetic polyolefin with two phases. One phase is
the continuous phase composed by rigid small polymer and the other phase is dispersed phase
by rigid polymer. It is attributed to the internal cavitations within the blend system. When
the material undergoes external tensile stress, pores will exist between the original combined
dispersed phase and continuous phase. The pore structure is transformed from concave structure
to convex structure, and expands its volume under tension. Then, the blended polymer achieves
auxetic effect [33, 34]. The blending method was also proved by Wangs work, who explained that
the rocks cavitations formed pores when the compression load was small in the initial state, and
the rock collapses and its diameter decreases with the increase of load. So, the rock has auxetic
effect [35, 36]. There are many researchers investigating auxetic material according to auxetic
materials microstructure. Crystal structure of cobalt ferrite spinel can be transformed from
open chain structure, can achieve auxetic effect when the single cell contains smaller cations or
transition metal ion, or when the spinel has obvious self-revolve orbital symmetric structure [37].
Frueh found a novel controllable auxetic effect of linearly elongated supported Polyelectrolyte
Multilayers (PEM) with amorphous structure. PEM prepared with NaCl increased thickness
upon elongation because of its amorphous structure as shown in Fig. 10. It may be explained
that the swelling upon elongation is the introduction of mechanical energy, surpassing the glass
transition point of the PEM [38].
Elongation
H2O

Release

H2O

H2O

Fig. 10: Changes of PEM with NaCl under tension

In 2010, Co-Ferrite Spinel Thin Film was found having molecular auxetic behavior with Poissons ratio being 0.85 because of its unique structure as shown in Fig. 11. The arrows in the
Figure show the shift directions of oxygen ions under compression formed by the auxetic effect
[39].
Polymers and molecules are the basic structure units of fibres, and the foam shows soft properties as fabrics and yarns. Moreover, special structure deformation of auxetic materials makes

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355

O
Co, Fe

Fig. 11: Molecular structure of Co-Ferrite spinel thin film

great contribution to special properties of textile materials. Thereof, textile products with negative Poissons ratio are attracted by many researchers in textile fields.

Textile Material with Auxetic Structure

3.1

Auxetic Fibres

Common textile materials are positive Poissons ratio materials. They undergo a transverse
contraction when stretched and a transverse expansion when compressed. According to the
analyses of auxetic foams and polymers, textile materials with negative Poissons ratio, including
fibre, yarn and fabric, should redesign their microscopic structure as reentrant structure and
rotating structure.
Alderson and Evans made a node-fibril model to analyze the deformation mechanisms in auxetic
micro-porous polymer [40, 41]. Furthermore, Alderson obtained auxetic polypropylene fibre with
reentrant structure successfully by adjusting the process parameters and extrusion temperature of
melt spinning in 2002. They adopted node - fibril model of fibre to explain the negative Poissons
ratio effects (Fig. 12). In the model, nodes are connected by fibril, and show negative Poissons
ratio effect for transverse expansion when the fibre is under axial tension. It is explained that
nodes are compressed to transform from outward-convex structure into inward-concave structure
in the initial status, and all nodes are connected by fibrils. When applied tensile force along the
fibrils axial direction, the fibrils are stretched and lift up nodes. Then, fibres become transversely
expanded when stretched in longitudinal direction [42]. Meanwhile, Alderson successfully developed auxetic polyester fibre with reentrant microstructures and value of negative Poissons ratio
can be controlled from 0.72 to 0.05 [43].
On the basis of manufacturing auxetic polypropylene fibre, Ravirala successfully obtained op-

Node
Fibril

Fig. 12: Node-fibril model of auxetic polypropylene

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timal process of auxetic polypropylene film [44], and it can be described by Victors model of
thin-walled structures, as shown in Fig. 13. Auxetic films microstructure is a folded structure,
when the film is stretched, the folded structure will unfold to expand transversely [45]. Comparisons of tensile deformation between typical common fibre and film are illustrated in Fig. 14.
It reports that polypropylene fibre and film with negative Poissons ratio have different section
change, better carrying capacity and energy absorption, high failure strain, better compressive
buffer capacity, low density, and higher maximum load and tensile fracture energy [46-50].

Positive poissons
ratio material

Fig. 13: Structure of auxetic film

Negative poissons
ratio material

Fig. 14: Tensile of common and auxetic Polypropylene

Quadrilateral key-block structure or Magnox reactor structure also presented negative Poissons ratio effects, as shown in Fig. 15. Each block of structures was linked by the key columns
[51]. Materials showed radioactive expansion under tension with negative Poissons ratio effect.
In addition, interlocking hexagonal block structure also had dilation effect (Fig. 16) [52]. The
midpoints of edges of the hexagon are convex or concave, and they are embedded with other
hexagons midpoints to form nodes. When the structures stretched, the nodes dislocate; when
compressed, the structures continue to be concave. The structures of Polygon structure are similar
to reentrant structures, because some parts are embedded into other parts as concave formation.

Fig. 15: Magnox reactor model

Fig. 16: Interlocking hexagons model

The rotating cell structure can be utilized to construct in-plane negative Poissons ratio structures, such as rotated rectangular cell, parallelogram cell, triangle cell and rhombus cell. The
cells are interlinked on the vertex by a chemical or physical adhesion way [53-55], as shown in
Fig. 17. In addition, some similar structures rotating semi-rigid units (such as shown in Fig. 18)
were designed based on the same principle [56, 57]. When the structures of rectangular cell, parallelogram cell and rhombus cell are stretched along horizontal direction, one cell will rotate from
the horizontally folded status into vertically unfolded status. The height of the cell increases from
length of edge into length of diagonal line. For structure of triangle cell, the height of the cell
increases from half length of edge into full length of edge. Thereof, these structures display transverse expansion with auxetic effects. According to this theory (Fig. 17 (b)) Grima put forward
auxetic silicate a-cristobalite in 3D level [58].

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(a)

(b)

357

(c)

Fig. 17: Geometry of rotating structure of auxetic cells

Fig. 18: Geometry of rotating semi-rigid units structures

The rotating cell structure can also be adopted to design auxetic granular materials. Gaspar
designed auxetic granular sphere with rotating structure. It contains internal component and
external component, and external components are linked by five movable arms, as shown in
Fig. 19. The movable arms are tangential to the internal arc-shaped component and are internally
rotated into folded status between the internal and external components. When the granular
material is stretched, the external components are also stretched to draw the movable arms. So,
the granular material shows expansion with auxetic effect [59].

Fig. 19: Auxetic granular material

Fig. 20: Planar isotropic structures with negative

Poissons ratio

The similar structure planar isotropic structure with negative Poissons ratio given by Shufrin
is shown in Fig. 20. The left-side identical units are made by a flexible frame with a sufficiently
rigid reinforcing core at the centre [60]. The right-side molecules (tetramers) are composed of four
identical hard disks (atoms) with centres forming a square with sides equal to the diameter of the
disks. The Poissons ratio is determined by the analysis of strain fluctuations and the reference
state of the system [61]. It is the same with the above two models for all of them having hard-core

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interactions.
Lu also designed a two-dimensional auxetic cellular material based on rotating principle (Fig. 21).
The convex and concave hexagons are interlinked in adjacent arrangements circularly. The cell
edges will rotate from flexion shape to linear shape and expand in transverse direction with
negative Poissons ratio [62].
Spadoni and Ruzzene reported a micropolar continuum chiral lattice model which presented
auxetic effect as shown in Fig. 22. And the negative Poissons ratio effect is decided by the ratio
between radius of a circle and arm length [63]. Similarly Mirosaw R. Dudek put forward magnetic
films [64] of negative Poissons ratio as shown in Fig. 23.

Fig. 21: A two-dimensional auxetic cellular material

Fig. 22: Micropolar continuum chiral lattice

Fig. 23: Schema of the polymer matrix with

model

hexagonal units

Many structures of plane auxetic materials are designed, such as the two-dimensional concave
hexagonal honeycomb structure and herringbone structure models (Fig. 24). The corresponding
materials with the structures will have negative Poissons ratio effects. A further investigation
based on the plane concave structure is cubic concave structure. Daviad put forward threedimensional auxetic materials by increasing the number of original models layers and directly
laying up without changing the angle of the layer. Each layer is connected by adhesive bond
vertically. Both the kinds of three-dimensional materials based on the original two-dimensional
structure in Fig. 24 show negative Poissons ratio effects [65-68]. According to this method,
Schwerdtfeger also got a kind of periodic auxetic structure produced by SEBM [69]. Moreover,
Mitschke abtained mathematical optimization to design auxetic materials whose structures were
just like the pictures below which presented a clear and intuitive understanding [70].
On the basis of reentrant honeycomb network model, Sun and Pugno put forward a new kind
of hierarchical tube with a negative Poissons ratio whose first level tube was constructed by
rolling up an auxetic hexagonal honeycomb (Fig. 24 (a)). It was found that these kinds of auxetic
tubes as reinforced fibres in composite materials attributed a higher resistance to fibre pullout
[71]. Structures with periodic tessellations were designed, such as triangle-square-wheel model
(Fig. 25). Finite element method was used to prove their negative Poissons ratio effects [72].

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359

Fig. 24: Reentrant honeycomb network model and cut missing rib model

Fig. 25: Model of triangle-square-wheel structure

Furthermore, Gaspar and Evans put forward a theoretical three-dimensional negative Poissons
ratio model on the basis of in-plane auxetic fibre structure in 2010. The model consists of cyclical
tetragonal lattices [73], as shown in Fig. 26. The 8 lattice cells linked by fibrils are located on
the 8 vertices and are rotated internally to be a folded structure around the centre lattice cell by
external load. Thereof, the lattice cells will rotate and unfold to express auxetic properties when
stretched. It shows auxetic effects in three-dimensional directions of materials.

For the three-dimensional negative Poissons ratio structure model, Attard and Grima also
presented three-dimensional auxetic structure model consisting of three different rigid cubes, as
seen in Fig. 27 (a). The edges of the cubes are connected to form macroscopic structure (Fig. 27
(b) and (c)) [74]. When stretched or compressed in any direction, the adjacent cubes rotate and

Fig. 26: Three-dimensional structure of auxetic lattices

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x3
Ox2
a1

c1

b1

c3

a2
c2

b2

b3

x2

a2
Ox1

Ox3

x1
(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 27: 3D rigid auxetic material model

the angles between any two surfaces gradually change and the structures display spatial expansion
or contraction. The principle is similar to the rotating rectangular cell in Fig. 15.
A macroscopic auxetic hybrid material structure model was put forwarded by Pasternak, as
shown in Fig. 28. The unit consists of four balls and four short stainless-steel rods, and the
four balls are linked by stainless-steel rods to each other along the central line. The ends of the
stainless steel rods are like a rubber pad to ensure that the hybrid material has high elastic recovery
properties [75, 76]. In addition, the rubber pads shrink when the balls are under compression in
the initial state, and all balls contract closer. When the external forces compress to the balls,
the high elasticity of rubber pad would make the balls move inwards along the stainless steel rod.
Then, the material contracts and has good negative Poissons ratio effects in the three-dimensional
direction.
(a)

(b)

Fig. 28: Structure model of macro-auxetic material

3.2

Auxetic Yarn

In recent years, auxetic yarns are much more concerned as they possess properties different from
traditional yarns physical and mechanical performance. It may affect properties of functional
fabrics to some extent, such as antibacterial and permeability properties. Especially for waterproof fabric and electromagnetic shielding fabrics, the larger gaps between yarns have significant
negative effects on the functions; the gaps between yarns woven/knitted into fabrics will decrease

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361

with the tension of fabrics. It is an effective method to solve the above problems of functional
fabrics. In 2008, Evans developed negative Poissons ratio yarn (Fig. 29) successfully using high
elastic filament as core filament and high modulus filament as wrap filament [77]. The wrap filament wraps the core filament by selecting definite diameter ratio and initial wrapping angle; then,
auxetic yarn can be spun, which is similar to set the core filament as soft segment entad-rotated
in core of yarn, while the warp filament is hard segment and inwardly folded. Thereof, when yarn
is stretched, the wrap filament will unfold to extend and replace the core position of yarn; while
the core filament will be bent and folded to replace the sheath position of yarn, which display
expansion in transverse direction. It may be explained that the wrap filament opposes higher
stiffness and lower elasticity, while the core filament has higher elasticity. Moreover, diameter
of the core filament is much bigger than that of the wrap filament in natural status. Then, the
dilation effects of the yarn are significant [78]. Evans further studied structure and mechanical
properties of the auxetic yarns. The study showed that the tensile modulus, diameter and diameter ratio, initial wrapping angle and the material Poissons ratio of both the core filament
and the wrap filament significantly affect the negative Poissons ratio of the yarn [79, 80]. Hook
proposed a variety of applications of auxetic yarn, such as filtering, dental floss, and operation
suture [81]. On the basis of the above research, Miller designed unidirectional composite materials
with negative Poissons ratio using both unsaturated polyester resin and auxetic yarn spun by
carbon fibre, as shown in Fig. 30. The wrap angle of auxetic yarn influences the negative Poissons
ratio of composite materials, where the negative Poissons ratio can reach to 6.8 [82]. Authors
also conducted the designing and manufacture of auxetic yarns using finite element analysis, and
successfully prepared the auxetic yarn and studied the auxetic yarns deformation and changes
of stress and strain under tensile load [83]. It greatly contributes to the industrial production of
newly structured yarn-auxetic yarn.

Fig. 29: Structure of auxetic yarn before or

Fig. 30: Composite material with auxetic yarn

under tension

3.3

Auxetic Fabric

With the increasing research on auxetic fibres, the textile researchers expand investigations into
auxetic yarn and auxetic fabric more and more. The geometrical phenomenon of auxetic fabric
is that size of fabric will become larger under tension, while sizes of pores within fabric show

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incremental trend. In recent years, Hu fabricated several auxetic knitted fabrics with rotating
folded rectangle-linking structure shown in Fig. 31 (a), rotating folded parallelogram structure
shown in Fig. 31 (b) and reentrant hexagonal structure shown in Fig. 31 (c) according to Grima
and Evanss theoretical models. The internal rotation folded knitted structures, as shown in
Fig. 31 (b), is a three-dimensional structure consisting of many parallelograms of the same size.
These parallelograms are connected with each other in line form. When the fabric is stretched
along the longitudinal direction, the fabric expands in the transverse direction as the parallelogram
units unfold. When the fabric is stretched in horizontal direction, as shown in Fig. 31 (c), it
expands in the vertical direction; it is because that angle of the reentrant structure of fabric
increases and the structure is dilated gradually [84, 85].
b
a

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 31: Structure of auxetic fabrics with different microstructures

Samuel designed reentrant hexagonal structure warp knitted fabric, where the laying-in filaments are knitted in the comb warp-knitted fabric (Fig. 32). When the fabric is stretched along
the vertical direction, the laying-in filaments will be stretched for high modulus and low elastic
elongation, which bend the loops to show horizontal expansion [86-88].
c

a1

b2

b1

a2

Fig. 32: Auxetic structures of auxetic Laying-in warp-knitted fabric

It is specially marked in Fig. 32 that the loop yarns are bent to decrease their neighbouring
space distances. The sizes of pores in the fabric contract even when fabrics are stretched. The
structure will make great contribution to magnetic-shielding fabrics and water-repellent/windproof fabrics. It can be concluded that auxetic fabrics are constructed by special fabric pattern,
where the basic units of yarns woven or knitted into fabrics should be designed into reentrant
structure or rotating structure.
In 2010, Zhou et. al. reported a very good method for testing Poissons ratio and modulus
of elastic knitted fabric, based on orthotropic theory and strip biaxial tensile test. It provided

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a strong basis for characterizing numerical simulation of garment pressure distribution and garment dressing system [89]. In 2011, Greaves et. al. stressed the importance of Poissons ration
in modern materials and comprehensively elaborated the relationships outside the elastic limit
between Poissons ratio and densification, connectivity, ductility and the toughness of solids [90].

Conclusion

Reviews on auxetic materials of foam, polymer and textile materials are investigated and the
mechanism of the dilation property is analyzed in this paper. These materials undergo a transverse
expansion when stretched in one direction and a transverse contraction when compressed. It
is found that it is dependent on the microstructures of these auxetic materials different from
common materials. The conventional foam with positive Poissons ratio can obtain negative
Poissons ratio effect through transformation into reentrant structure of 3-dimensional 24-sided
polyhedron. Polymer shows dilation effect because it consists of inward-concave micelles and
buckling fibrils. When stretched, the concave micelles are pulled up by connecting fibrils and
the subject expands in transverse direction. In addition, polymers with rotating structure also
display auxetic effect, in which the micelles entad-rotated will unfold to rotate outward and show
transverse expansion when stretched. Auxetic fibres are successfully spun by devising micellefibril model according to reentrant structure and rotating structure. Yarn with negative Poissons
ratio is also acquired by setting high stiff filament folded inwardly in the sheath of yarn and high
elastic filament with larger diameter in the core of yarn according to reentrant structure. Thereof,
when stretched, yarn displays expansion in transverse direction. It can be concluded from auxetic
materials, including foam, polymer, fibre, fabric and yarn, that materials with negative Poissons
ratio can be fabricated by designing their microstructure to be reentrant or rotating structure.
Fabrics those are designed with rotating structure or reentrant structure will expand, which means
the structures outwardly rotate or unfold to expand transversely when stretched in longitudinal
direction
Compared with common textile materials, auxetic textile materials are different remarkably in
terms of their structures and properties. Its special performance will make great contribution
to magnetic-shielding fabrics and water-repellent/wind-proof fabrics. They can also be used in
infrastructure, aerospace engineering, biomedical engineering and environmental engineering.

Acknowledgement
This work was supported by Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher
Education (New Teachers), and also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (Grant 51203022, 11272086), and supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities, and supported by China Graduates Innovation Project funding.

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