DAMAGE DEVELOPMENT IN A GLASS/EPOXY NON-CRIMP 3D ORTHOGONAL WOVEN FABRIC COMPOSITE

摘要

Understanding damage and mechanisms of failure is one of the important areas in the design and modelling of fibre reinforced composite materials. A significant amount of effort is being put into providing a thorough assessment of the availability of damage and failure criteria in conventional nonwoven composite laminates made of unidirectional tape prepregs. Damage and failure progression is much less well understood when dealing with the new 3D fibre reinforced composites and there is a need to understand the damage development qualitatively before confidence can be placed in quantitative modelling. The developments of novel 3D woven composite materials arise as a result of a strong need to manufacture composites that are cheap, easy to form into complex shapes, impact resistant, damage tolerant, and are sufficiently good in their other mechanical properties compared with traditional prepreg laminates. 3D composites consist normally of tows oriented through-the-thickness as well as in the in-plane directions. As a consequence, it is envisioned that the through-thickness reinforcement could offer substantial advantages in terms of improving the damage tolerance and lead to better lateral impact characteristics.