Process and simulation chains for advanced textile structural composites

Composite materials, especially those involving long carbon fibres oriented optimally according to the loads, offer the highest potential for the realization of high performance, light weight structural components.The drawbacks, preventing these materials from being used more intensively for example in automotive and civil engineering, consisted for a long time mainly in the time consuming and therefore expensive manufacturing process and in the low damage tolerance caused by the layered structure of these materials. An approach for improving as well the manufacturing process as the damage tolerance is the use of advanced textile preforms in combination with appropriate resin injection and curing processes. Braiding, knitting, embroidery or stitching techniques allow the realization of more or less complex fibre preforms featuring also a three-dimensional reinforcement if required. In this paper, the potential of different basic textile reinforcements for the use in structural composites with respect to their application in automotive and aerospace components will be evaluated. The key for successful applications is based on the philosophy of a modular design and manufacturing process combining these basic textiles to a complex structure, for example by stitching in a process chain. The virtual design process has also to follow a simulation chain taking all steps from the basic textile process over draping to injection into account. Only by this integrated approach all factors of influence can be taken into account in order to calculate the mechanical performance and to simulate the manufacturing process.