Compaction of textile reinforcements for composites manufacturing. II: Compaction and relaxation of dry and H ₂ O‐saturated woven reinforcements

Abstract

Abstract Previous analysis of published experimental results on compaction and relaxation of textile reinforcements allowed the effects of some processing parameters on the mechanical behavior of the reinforcements to be identified. However, a limited number of relaxation results are available; also, the effect of some parameters on compaction received limited attention, and the behavior observed with fluid‐saturated reinforcements has not been investigated. In this paper, the results of a structured experimental program of compaction and relaxation performed on three woven reinforcements are reported. In half the trials, a relaxation period was imposed on the samples. In the other half, samples saturated with distilled H 2 O were compacted. The selection of the processing parameters was found to be as important as the selection of the reinforcement itself for the definition of a manufacturing operation. The processing parameters governing the compaction and relaxation were seen not to be the same, and the fiber reorganization that occurs during the compaction phase was found to have a different effect on successive compaction cycles than the reorganization occurring during the relaxation.