Study on Damage Development of Woven Fabric Composites with Spread Tow

Abstract

Woven architecture with spread tow may induce the improvement of resin impregnation, high strength by high volume fraction, etc. However, the mechanism of damage development of woven fabric composites with spread tow has not been completely investigated. To investigate the effect of spread tow on the damage development, the numerical results of the mechanical behavior have been described. We have developed a numerical simulation on damage development of woven fabric composites based on damage mechanics. From the numerical results of mechanical behaviors under tensile loading for woven fabric composites with/without spread tow, it is found that the location of occurrence and the type of propagation of transverse cracks are quite different due to the effect of spread tow. Furthermore, an effect of volume fraction in spread tow on the damage development has also been described. It has been recognized that the damage development inside lamina considering an effect of a spread tow, which has been never observed in experiments, can be predicted by the finite element analysis based on damage mechanics.