Controllable parameters as the essential components in the analysis, manufacturing and design of 3D woven composites

Sitnikova, Elena; Xu, Mingming; Kong, Weiyi; Li, Shuguang

Abstract

The comprehensive design feasibility for woven composites has been established by identifying the missing component in the design tool for these materials, the so-called controllable parameters. These are the parameters that are involved, directly or indirectly, in manufacturing of woven preforms, and they include the tow densities, the number and the size of filaments in a tow and intra-tow fibre volume fractions. Controllable parameters have been related through a simple procedure to the conventional geometric parameters of woven composites, which eliminates the need for their costly, inefficient, and often unreliable measurements. The controllable parameters provide sufficient representation of woven geometry in terms of both modelling and manufacture, thus offering common terminology to the woven composite designers and manufacturers. This also allows to naturally involve the practical considerations and manufacturing restrictions in material design exercises. With controllable parameters being incorporated in woven composite design framework, a direct analogy can be drawn to classical lamination theory-based design for conventional laminates. The wide applicability of the design tool has been demonstrated via a series of systematic material characterisation exercises carried out with woven composites of sufficiently different internal architectures and constituents, which also showed good predictive capability of the models involved.

Citation

Sitnikova, E., Xu, M., Kong, W., & Li, S. (2022). Controllable parameters as the essential components in the analysis, manufacturing and design of 3D woven composites. Composites Science and Technology, 230, Article 109730. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compscitech.2022.109730

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 7, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Sep 13, 2022
• Publication Date: Nov 10, 2022
• Deposit Date: Oct 17, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 18, 2022
• Journal: Composites Science and Technology
• Print ISSN: 0266-3538
• Publisher: Elsevier BV
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 230
• Article Number: 109730
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compscitech.2022.109730
• Keywords: General Engineering; Ceramics and Composites
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/11201032
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0266353822004729?via%3Dihub
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Controllable parameters as the essential components in the analysis, manufacturing and design of 3D woven composites; Journal Title: Composites Science and Technology; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compscitech.2022.109730; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.