Fibre Placement Architectures for Improved Damage Tolerance

Doctoral thesis (2013)

Authors

Contributors

Z. Gürdal (promotor)
Department
Aerospace Structures and Computational Mechanics (Aerospace Engineering) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2013 Nagelsmit, M.H.
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Published Date

10-12-2013

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Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Department

Aerospace Structures and Computational Mechanics

Abstract

Composites are notorious for their poor impact behaviour. Delaminations seriously decrease the compressive strength of the material after impact. Laminates made from woven fabric show in general more beneficial impact behaviour than laminates with unidirectional layers, but their manufacturing process is harder to automate. The new fibre placement architectures named AP-PLY combine an increased damage tolerance with an automated production process. Using fibre placement, instead of placing parallel fibre bands next to each other, room is left between bands. A second series of interspaced fibre bands is placed at an angle with respect to the first series. The remaining gaps are subsequently filled up. Adjacent plies are thus more interconnected and delamination damage is contained in a smaller area. Test results show significant improvement in compression after impact strength, delaminations are smaller and barely visible impact damage is reached at a lower impact energy level. In one of the configurations, the compressive strength after impact is increased with 15%.