Investigating the impact of different machinability processes and fibre architecture on the bearing performance of pin-loaded textile structural composites for automotive applications: Experimental and finite element analysis

The present study aims to investigate the effect of different machinability processes such as drilling, abrasive water jet machining (AWJM), and laser beam machining (LBM) along with different fibre architectures on the behavior of machined hole, bearing strength (joint performance), and failure mechanism of different textile fibrereinforced structural composites (TFRSC) fabricated using glass, basalt, and sisal fibres suitable for automotive applications. Different structural preforms such as chopped fibre, unidirectional (UD), bidirectional (2D), and three-dimensional (3D) woven orthogonal structures were developed and subsequently converted to their respective composite forms using the vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) process. Morphological damage evaluation and fractography of the developed composite materials were carried out by optical microscopic analysis. The experimental observations revealed that the basalt fibre reinforced textile structural composite (BFRTSC) specimens exhibited the highest bearing strength compared to glass fibre reinforced textile structural composites (GFRTSC) and sisal fibre reinforced textile structural composites (SFRTSC) for all the processes. The bearing strength of composites was in the order of 3D > chopped > 2D > UD, respectively. Additionally, a novel methodical mechanics-based approach was introduced to develop the finite element modeling (FEM) mesoscale model using SOLIDWORKS to study the bearing response of pin-loaded TFRSC. The well-established 3D Hashin's failure and Puck's failure models were used to predict the woven-based composite material damage modes, and it was implemented through a user subroutine along with LS-DYNA. The bearing response predicted by the FEM simulation was found in a good agreement with the experimental observations.

Automated summary

This study investigates the effect of different machinability processes and fibre architectures on the behavior, strength, and failure mechanism of textile fibre reinforced structural composites (TFRSC) suitable for automotive applications. Basalt fibre reinforced composites exhibited the highest bearing strength, and a mechanics-based approach using finite element modeling was successfully used to predict the bearing response of the composites.