Achieving Realistic Tow Fiber Volume Fractions in Textile Composite Models by Inducing Fiber Entanglement

Abstract

Modeling composites can be an effective way to understand how a part will perform without requiring the destruction of costly specimens. By combining artificial fiber entanglement with manufacturing process simulation, a method was developed to create fiber bundle models using entanglement to control the fiber volume fraction. This fiber entanglement generation uses three parameters, probability of swapping (p_(r_S )), swapping radius standard deviation (r_(σ_S )), and the swapping plane spacing (l_S), to control the amount of entanglement within the fiber bundle. A parametric study was conducted and found that the more entanglement within a fiber bundle, the more compression mold pressure required to compact the fiber bundle to the same fiber volume fraction as that required for a less entangled bundle. This artificial fiber entanglement and manufacturing process simulation method for creating fiber bundles shows the potential to be able to create bundles with controlled final volume fraction using a desired mold compression pressure.