Abstract: The warp knitted fabrics have been widely used as structural reinforcement of rigid, semi-rigid and flexible composite materials. In order to meet the performance requirements of different engineering applications, four typical warp knitted meshes of rectangular, square, circular and diamond were designed and developed. Their thickness, weight density, porosity, bursting, uniaxial and biaxial tensile properties were tested and compared in this research. The results show that the thickness of the diamond warp knitted mesh is the smallest and its porosity is the highest (77.9%). The square warp knitted mesh is tested to be softest with the smallest bending stiffness. The bursting strength of these four mesh fabrics does not differ significantly. The biaxial tensile behavior of warp knitted meshes tends to be more isotropic, in which the anisotropy level of diamond warp knitted mesh is the lowest (λ=0.046), while the rectangular one is the most anisotropic (λ=0.303).

Key words: warp knitted mesh, mechanical performance, uniaxial tension, biaxial tensiin, isotropy