Tensile and bending behaviours of laminates with various fabric orientations

Woven fabrics are probably by far the most commonly used forms of textile composites in structural applications, they generally consist of two sets of interlaced yarn components, known as the warp and weft yarns according to the yarn directions in the fabric. One of the major factors which influences the mechanical properties of the woven fabric composites is the stacking orientations of the fabric layers in the composites. Vacuum assisted resin infusion technique was employed to produce two-layer laminates with various fabric crossing angles. The bending and tensile behaviours of the specimens were measured, the results showed that both bending character and tensile strength were highly influenced by the orientation of the fabric layers in the laminates. Parallel lay-ups of the fabric would increase both the bending and tensile strength in a definite direction, meanwhile, elongation at break in that direction was also increased greatly. Distinctive fracture profiles were noticed when using different fabric orientations in the laminates. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.