Prediction of Elastic Constants of Carbon Fabric/Polyurethane Composites

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to study a new composite material consisting of polyurethane (PU) resin and carbon fiber fabric. This PU resin is superior in impact, viscosity, low curing temperature, and short curing time. If this resin is combined with fiber fabric by vacuum assisted resin transfer method, the fabrication time will be short. Since it is a braided composite, it’s important to have a model to predict the elastic constants for different braid angels. To predict the elastic constants including Young’s modulus, shear modulus, and Poisson’s ratio, a finite element model is established. In this model a braided layer is treated as two uni-directional layers. Then, the elastic constants of this composite with different braid angels are estimated. After that, the composites with different braid angels are fabricated and tested to obtain the elastic constants, and the comparison with the finite element results is made. The results indicate that the agreement is very good for the Young’s modulus. For the Poisson’s ratio, the difference between the prediction and the measurement is reasonable. From the comparison, it can be concluded that the finite element model is good. Then, this model is used to predict all in-plane elastic constants for arbitrary braid angles.