DESIGN APPROACH FOR 3D WOVEN COMPOSITES: COST VS. PERFORMANCE

摘要

There have been many publications and numerous patents related to "3D Weaving". In spite of the limited number of commercial 3D technologies, the design window for this class of materials is tremendously broad. This paper will present an approach for designing 3D woven fabrics that takes into account both performance and cost. It will be shown that after narrowing the choices to one 3D weaving technology, and restricting the fiber inputs to a select few carbon and glass tows common in the industry, the design flexibility is still almost limitless. Some practical guides for the design of these truly unique 3D textile composites will be presented. The approach will take into consideration not only performance and manufacturing, but also cost. In today's world of 'concurrent engineering', inter-disciplinary design approaches and the ever increasing pressure for shorter and shorter development cycles; the design of the textile preform must include elements of cost and manufacturablity along with performance. Process modeling, cost modeling, and performance modeling must all be applied not only to the application/structural design; and not only to the material design; but also to the preform design. A case study is used to demonstrate that relatively minor design changes can result in very different performance and costs.