A cooperative benchmark effort on testing of woven composites

Abstract

Woven fabric reinforced composites (hereafter referred to as woven composites) have attracted a significant amount of attention from industry and academia, due to their high specific strength and stiffness and supreme formability. To design effective and economic manufacturing processes for woven composites requires extensive simulation and experimental research, in which benchmark tests can play an important role. Several research groups have set up an international forum exclusively for research on forming of woven composites at http://www.gtwebsolutions.com/nwbenchmark. Three types of woven fabrics/preforms are currently being tested. Their material properties are listed in Table 1 reported by the material supplier and benchmark participants. Bias extension and trellis shear tests have been developed and conducted by different groups as listed in Table 2. In this paper, we will present the experimental setups and results. Fabric 1 Fabric 2 Fabric 3