Weave technologies and impact performance of varied shaped cellular textile composites

Abstract

Cellular structural composites have been widely used in aerospace, radar satellite, rocket missile, automobile, ship, rail transit, construction, and packaging engineering etc. Textile reinforced composite is a niche market of the composites family with its advantages of light weight and good mechanical properties. In this article, textile reinforced cellular composites are fabricated and tested under low velocity impact to investigate their energy absorption performances by experimental method. Cellular structure fabric with internal tunnels of triangle, hexagon, trapezoid, and mixed shapes are weaved and consolidated by epoxy resin. The cellular structure composites are impacted under low velocity impact and it is verified that the four types of composites are show different impact performances. The triangle cell composite is sensitive to the out-coming penetration, while the trapezoid cell material is flexible to deform to absorb the energy. The other two structure cell composites are easily damaged by the output impact. The outcomes of this research study provide experimental results for the future investigation of similar composite materials.