Mechanical Properties Prediction by Geometric Modeling of Plain Weave Composites

Textile composite materials have been widely applied in aerospace structures due to their various advantages such as high specific stiffnesses and strengths, better out-of-plane performances, impact and delamination resistances, and net shape fabrications. In this paper, a modified geometric model of repeating unit cell (RUC) is suggested based on the Naik's model for 2D plain weave textile composites. The RUC geometry is defined by various parameters. The proposed model considers another parameter which is a gap length between adjacent yarns. The effective stiffnesses are predicted by using the yarn slicing technique and stress averaging technique based on iso-strain assumption. And the stiffnesses of RUC are evaluated by adjusting the gap ratio and verified by comparing with Naik's model and experimental data for 2D plain weave composite specimens.