Textile Reinforced Structural Composites for Advanced Applications

Textile-reinforced composites are increasingly used in various industries such as aerospace, construction, automotive, medicine, and sports due to their distinctive advantages over traditional materials such as metals and ceramics. Fiber-reinforced composite materials are lightweight, stiff, and strong. They have good fatigue and impact resistance. Their directional and overall properties can be tailored to fulfill specific needs of different end uses by changing constituent material types and fabrication parameters such as fiber volume fraction and fiber architecture. A variety of fiber architectures can be obtained by using two- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) fabric production techniques such as weaving, knitting, braiding, stitching, and nonwoven methods. Each fiber architecture/textile form results in a specific configuration of mechanical and performance properties of the resulting composites and determines the end-use possibilities and product range. This chapter highlights the constituent materials, fabric formation techniques, production methods, as well as application areas of textile-reinforced composites. Fiber and matrix materials used for the production of composite materials are outlined. Various textile production methods used for the formation of textile preforms are explained. Composite fabrication methods are introduced. Engineering properties of textile composites are reviewed with regard to specific application areas. The latest developments and future challenges for textile-reinforced composites are presented.