Strength prediction of a triaxially braided composite

The architecture of textile reinforcement affects the deformation and failure behavior of the textile reinforced composites. This paper presents an approximate method that incorporates the in-plane periodic meso structure of the textile composite in finite element models. In this approach, the representative unit cell (RUC) of a textile composite is divided into sub-cells. Instead of obtaining a homogeneous equivalent, these sub-cells are idealized and represented with laminates of different layups using shell elements. In this way, an RUC can be constructed with a small number of elements. This method holds the promise of creating a textile composite FE model with an improved accuracy without compromising computational efficiency. The sub-cell FE model was examined by modeling the stress–strain response of a triaxially braided composite and the results were encouraging. The predicted tensile and compressive responses were in good agreement with the experimental results.