Tow mechanics: a contact mechanics approach of friction in fibrous tows during forming

Composites forming processes involve mechanical interactions on the ply, tow, and filament level. The deformations that occur during forming processes are governed by friction between tows and tooling material on the mesoscopic level and consequently between filaments within the tows on the microscopic level. A thorough understanding of the frictional properties of individual filaments is essential to understand and to predict the macroscopic deformations of a fabric during forming. This paper provides a global description of the experimental and modelling approaches to explain the contact friction between fibrous tows and metal tooling material, focusing on contact mechanics at the tow and filament scale.