Fibers orientation

There exists anisotropic mechanical behavior for short carbon fiber reinforced composites. The fibers oriented along mechanical loading direction generally yield higher reinforcing efficiency than those perpendicular to the loading direction [33]. On the basis of the periodic-cell simulation for short-reinforced composites, Nishikawa et al. demonstrated 

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Figure I represents a two-dimensional damage distribution of an impact in a 0/90° CFRP laminate of 3 mm thickness. Unlike in ultrasonic testing, which is usually the standard method for this problem, there is no shadowing effect on the successive layers by delamination echos. With the method of X-ray refraction the exact concentration of debonded fibers can be calculated for each position averaged over the wall thickness. Additionally the refraction allows the selection of the fiber orientation. The presented X-ray refraction topograph detects selectively debonded fibers of the 90° direction.

Fig. 1 High re.solution X-ray refraction topography of low energy impact (5J) at CFRP epoxy laminate. Image area 2 mm X 4 mm. Horizontal resolution 0.2 mm. The image represents selectively an area of debonded fibers of vertical fiber orientation.

The results presented below were obtained using a 2 mm thick carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composite laminate with 16 layers. The laminate was quasi isotropic with fiber orientations 0°, 90° and 45°. The laminate had an average porosity content of approximately 1.7%. The object was divided in a training area and an evaluation area. The model parameters were determined by data solely from the training area. Both ultrasound tranducers used in the experiment had a center frequency of 21 MHz and a 6 dB bandwidth of 70%. 

Within the plane of a nonwoven material, the fibers may be either completely isotropic or there may be a preferred fiber orientation or alignment usually with respect to a machine or processing direction. In the case of thicker dry-laid nonwovens, fiber orientation may be randomized in the third dimension, ie, that dimension which is perpendicular to the plane of the fabric, by a process known as needle-punching (7). This process serves to bind the fibers in the nonwoven by mechanical interlocking. 

Laminated MMCs. There are three types of laminated MMCs (/) metallic matrix-containing fibers oriented at different angles in different layers, similar to that of polymeric laminates (2) two or more different metallic sheets bonded to each other and (3) laminated metal/discontinuously reinforced MMC. 

As fibers in the feed mat pass between the feed toU and feed plate, they ate separated by metallic wine teeth on the lickerin toU and carried to an air venturi where they ate stripped and tumbled until they strike a moving, perforated collection surface. At the collection surface, the airborne fibers foUow paths of least resistance and accumulate in a self-leveling manner while the air passes through perforations. Fiber orientation in the web is isotropic in layers corresponding to the number of fibers transferred from the wine teeth to the air-transportation 2one, the intensity of the air, and the speed of the collection surface. 

As a general rule, however, textile fibers do not wet out readily, are difficult to disperse, and tend to tangle with one another. Consequendy, large amounts of water are necessary to keep the fibers suspended. Further, if the slurry is not handled propedy, the fibers tangle and cause poor sheet formation. Two approaches to resolving these difficulties are increasing slurry—dilution ratio and controlling fiber orientation. 

Composites fabricated with fixed catalyst VGCF can be designed with fibers oriented in preferred directions to produce desired combinations of thermal conductivity and coefficient of thermal expansion. While such composites are not likely to be cost-competitive with metals in the near future, the ability to design for thermal conductivity in preferred directions, combined with lower density and lower coefficient of thermal expansion, could warrant the use of such VGCF composites in less price sensitive applications, such as electronics for aerospace vehicles. 

A laminate is a bonded stack of laminae with various orientations of principal material directions in the laminae as in Figure 1-9. Note that the fiber orientation of the layers in Figure 1-9 is not symmetric about the middle surface of the laminate. The layers of a laminate are usually bonded together by the same matrix material that is used in the individual laminae. That is, some of the matrix material in a lamina coats the surfaces of a lamina and is used to bond the lamina to its adjacent laminae without the addition of more matrix material. Laminates can be composed of plates of different materials or, in the present context, layers of fiber-reinforced laminae. A laminated circular cylindrical shell can be constructed by winding resin-coated fibers on a removable core structure called a mandrel first with one orientation to the shell axis, then another, and so on until the desired thickness is achieved. 

The stiffness wouid also be high in the 1-direction and low in the 2-direction, as is easily imagined on the physical basis of the fiber orientation. Imagine that, in the 1-2 plane, the stresses are... 

A cross-ply laminate in this section has N unidirectionally reinforced thotropic) layers of the same material with principal material directions srnatingly oriented at 0° and 90° to the laminate coordinate axes. The sr direction of odd-numbered layers is the x-direction of the laminate, e fiber direction of even-numbered layers is then the y-direction of the linate. Consider the special case of odd-numbered layers with equal kness and even-numbered layers also with equal thickness, but not essarily the same thickness as that of the odd-numbered layers, te that we have imposed very special requirements on how the fiber sntations change from layer to layer and on the thicknesses of the ers to define a special subclass of cross-ply laminates. Thus, these linates are termed special cross-ply laminates and will be explored his subsection. More general cross-ply laminates have no such con-ons on fiber orientation and laminae thicknesses. For example, a neral) cross-ply laminate could be described with the specification t/90° 2t/90° 2t/0° t] wherein the fiber orientations do not alter-e and the thicknesses of the odd- or even-numbered layers are not same however, this laminate is clearly a symmetric cross-ply lami-e. 

Fibers are often regarded as the dominant constituents in a fiber-reinforced composite material. However, simple micromechanics analysis described in Section 7.3.5, Importance of Constituents, leads to the conclusion that fibers dominate only the fiber-direction modulus of a unidirectionally reinforced lamina. Of course, lamina properties in that direction have the potential to contribute the most to the strength and stiffness of a laminate. Thus, the fibers do play the dominant role in a properly designed laminate. Such a laminate must have fibers oriented in the various directions necessary to resist all possible loads. 

A possible adjunct to the laminate design procedure is a specific laminate failure criterion that is based on the maximum strain criterion. In such a criterion, all lamina failure modes are ignored except for fiber failure. That is, matrix cracking is regarded as unimportant. The criterion is exercised by finding the strains in the fiber directions of each layer. When these strains exceed the fiber failure strain in a particular type of layer, then that layer is deemed to have failed. Obviously, more laminae of that fiber orientation are needed to successfully resist the applied load. That is, this criterion allows us to preserve the identity of the failing lamina or laminae so that more laminae of that type (fiber orientation) can be added to the laminate to achieve a positive margin of safety. 

In this process, resin is injected into a closed mold containing the reinforcement preform. The resin can be injected either under pressure [22] or under vacuum [23]. The potential advantages of this process are (I) low mold cost, (2) inserts can be incorporated, (3) low pressure requirements, (4) accurate fiber orientation, (5) automation possibilities, and (6) versatility. The resin formulation and process variables are selected so that no significant polymerization occurs until the mold cavity has been completely filled. This is achieved by the ad-... 

Figure 6 Effect of fiber orientation on (a) tensile strength and (b) tensile modulus of PALF-LDPE composites.

A discontinuous fiber composite is one that contains a relatively short length of fibers dispersed within the matrix. When an external load is applied to the composite, the fibers are loaded as a result of stress transfer from the matrix to the fiber across the fiber-matrix interface. The degree of reinforcement that may be attained is a function of fiber fraction (V/), the fiber orientation distribution, the fiber length distribution, and efficiency of... 

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