THE USE OF AUTOMATED IMAGE-ANALYSIS FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF FABRIC ARCHITECTURE ON THE PROCESSING AND PROPERTIES OF FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITES PRODUCED BY RTM
Nrl. Pearce et al., THE USE OF AUTOMATED IMAGE-ANALYSIS FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF FABRIC ARCHITECTURE ON THE PROCESSING AND PROPERTIES OF FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITES PRODUCED BY RTM, Composites. Part A, Applied science and manufacturing, 29(7), 1998, pp. 829-837
The use of resin transfer moulding (RTM) as an economic means of produ
cing high performance fibre-reinforced composites is critically limite
d by the permeability of the fabrics employed. Commercial fabrics are
available where the architecture of their reinforcement is designed to
cluster the fibres, giving higher permeabilities than conventional fa
brics. This has been shown to improve processing times but there is ev
idence that such clustering is detrimental to mechanical performance.
The objective of this work was to relate variations in permeability, m
echanical performance and microstructure. This was achieved by produci
ng carbon/epoxy plates of differing weave styles by RTM in a transpare
nt mould. Permeabilities were calculated. Interlaminar shear, tensile
and compressive tests were performed and fractal analysis was carried
out to obtain fractal dimensions for the three fabrics. Variations in
permeabilities and mechanical properties can be related to observed di
fferences in the microstructure. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All ri
ghts reserved.