Impact damage in woven fabric reinforced composites

Very often, woven fabrics are used as the reinforcement in advanced composite materials. Although the resulting inplane stiffness is lower than of their unidirectional counterparts, the excellent drapability of these materials eases the production of more general doubly curved components. In addition, the inherently low out-of-plane strength of these layered materials improves due to the undulating yarns. This paper considers both the initiation and growth of defects in these woven fabric reinforced plastics. Ten Cate Advanced Composites’ 5H Satin carbon reinforced PPS is taken as the model system. A 5H satin fabric exhibits very good drapability and PPS has a low viscosity above its melting point, enabling good yarn impregnation. Apart from this PPS has approved solvent resistance for aerospace applications and good temperature resistance. For a thermoplastic matrix, however, the material is fairly brittle.