EFFECT OF PREFORM ARCHITECTURE ON THE MECHANICAL AND FATIGUE BEHAVIOR OF BRAIDED COMPOSITES FOR GENERATING DESIGN ALLOWABLES

摘要

In this work the effect of four different braid architectures (i.e. braiding angle) on tension, compression and open-hole compression properties, all of these in both the longitudinal (0°) and transversal (90°) test direction, was investigated. In addition, the fatigue behavior was studied for the longitudinal test direction. The investigations were performed with rectangular specimens of carbon/epoxy laminates manufactured in the vacuum assisted resin transfer molding process (VARTM). The experimental results show that both longitudinal and transverse modulus and strength based on the tensile and compression tests depend strongly on the braid architecture of the textile material used. As expected, S-N curves were also found to be strongly affected by the braid architectures.