3D TEXTILE PREFORMS AND COMPOSITES FOR AIRCRAFT STRCUTURES: A REVIEW

Over the last decades, the development of 3D textile composites has been driven the structures developed to overcome disadvantages of 2D laminates such as the needs of reducing fabrication cost, increasing through-thickness mechanical properties, and improving impact damage tolerance. 3D woven, stitched, knitted and braided preforms have been used as composites reinforcement for these types of composites. In this paper, advantages and disadvantages of each of them have been comprehensively discussed. The fabric architects and their specification in particular stitched preforms and their deformation mode for aerospace applications have been reviewed. Exact insight into various types of damage in textile preforms and composite that have the potential to adversely affect the performance of composite structure along with their inspection using NDT techniques have been elaborated. The research review reported in this paper can be very valuable to researchers to release the 3D composite behaviour under different loading conditions and also to get familiar with the manufacture of high quality textile composite for aircraft structures. © 2019, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.