Continuous transverse permeability of fibrous media

The compaction of composite preforms and the flow of resin through the fibrous network take place simultaneously during the Resin Film Infusion process. Therefore there is a coupled loading of the porous reinforcements. A new experimental device to impose combinations of hydraulic and mechanical loadings (Hydro-Mechanical loadings) to fibrous preforms is used to evaluate the transverse permeability in a continuous manner (under Hydro-Mechanical conditions) for a flax mat, a flax non-crimped fabric, a carbon plain weave and a glass satin weave. For a 0.5 mm/min compression speed the continuous technique gives values similar to the classical technique for the four composite reinforcements of very different nature. This suggests that it is possible to use the continuous technique to evaluate the transverse permeability behaviour of fibrous reinforcements (permeability vs. fibre volume) with a time reduction of about 8-10. Increasing the compression speed gives slowly decreasing continuous transverse permeability values. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.