Acoustic emission analysis on mechanical properties and damage evolution of multiscale Kevlar/Glass hybrid 3D orthogonal woven composites under flexural loading

Official URL: https://anyflip.com/ztxcj/zoac/

Three-dimensional (3-D) woven fabrics have attracted a lot of attention due to their delamination resistance, great tailorability, and low manufacturing time. In this study, Acoustic Emission (AE) is used to investigate the effect of different fiber hybridization types of 3-D orthogonal fabrics on the flexural properties and damage evolution along the longitudinal and transverse direction of the composite plate. Three different fabric configurations, namely Baseline, Inter-ply and Intra-tow, are studied. All the fabric configurations have the same fabric architecture consisting of six warp and seven weft layers. The warps of all the fabric types are Kevlar whereas the z-binders consist of ultra-high molecular weight Polyethylene fibers. The wefts of the baseline fabric are all Kevlar while Inter-ply fabric has three Kevlar layers flanked by four glass layers. The Intra-tow fabric has three Kevlar layers in the middle with four layers of hybrid glass/Kevlar tows at the top and bottom surfaces. In-situ AE analysis is carried out to understand how damage starts and progresses in the three composite types. AE results are then verified using scanning electron microscopy.