Stiffness and strength behaviour of woven fabric composites

This paper presents three analytical models for the investigation of the stiffness and strength of woven fabric composites. The “mosaic model” is effective in predicting the elastic properties of fabric composites. The “fibre undulation model” takes into account fibre continuity and undulation and has been adopted for modelling the “knee behaviour” of plain weave fabric composites. The “bridging model” is developed to simulate the load transfer among the interlaced regions in satin composites. The theoretical predictions coincide extremely well with experimental measurements. The elastic stiffness and knee stress in satin composites are higher than those in plain weave composites due to the presence of the bridging regions in the weaving pattern.