Research Information System
12th Unites States/Japan Conference on Composite Materials, Michigan, United States Of America, 21 - 22 September 2006, pp.131-133
This paper presents the impact response of woven composites made of glass fabrics and an epoxy matrix. The effects of the weaving cell size on the impact resistance of woven composites were investigated: the weaving angle between fill and warp yams, the size of weaving cell and the stitching through composite thickness. An instrumented drop-weight impact testing machine was used in the investigations. Because special fiber geometries were involved in the study, all woven composites were fabricated manually and had approximately the same fiber volume fraction. The bending stiffness, peak force and perforation threshold were identified to be the primary impact characteristics of the woven composites. Since fill and warp yams could constrain mutual damage propagations, the cell size played an important role in the damage process.