Nonlinear bending response of two-ply plain woven carbon fibre composites

Abstract

Ultra-thin woven fibre composites are becoming popular in weight sensitive applications and hence it is important to predict their mechanical properties for design improvements. This paper presents a simple homogenized micro-mechanical modelling technique with solid elements for predicting mechanical properties of the thin woven fibre composites. A representative unit cell has been generated using a finite element pre-processor, TexGen and an elliptical crosssectioned yarn is then idealized to behave according to Kirchhoff – Love plate theory. Bezier spline is chosen as a suitable interpolation function for the composite, and further analysis is performed with two distinct unit cell representations. It is shown that a simple 3D solid model with idealized elliptical cross section predicts both in-plane and bending properties with good accuracy in the linear regime. The proposed 3D models are capable of predicting the response in the nonlinear regime and has overcome the anomalies faced with 1D model with respect to shear and Poisson’s ratio.