A new lamination theory for layered textile composites that account for manufacturing induced effects

This paper is concerned with the development of a new lamination theory for layered textile composites that can account for manufacturing induced effects. The theory can be used for the calculation of the effective linear elastic extensional and bending stiffnesses of laminated textile composite panels. A representative unit cell (RUC) of the textile architecture is first identified along with its constituents. Tow geometry is represented analytically taking account of tow undulation. Each tow is modeled as a transversely isotropic linear elastic solid and the contribution from each tow to the RUC elastic bending stiffness is obtained by volume averaging, taking account of the volume fraction of each constituent. The formulation is amenable to the incorporation of geometric changes to the textile architecture that occurs through manufacturing induced consolidation. Predictions of the elastic bending stiffness are compared against experimental data, showing a strong correlation between the analytical model and the experimental results. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.