Research Activities in Textile Preforms at the Cooperative Research Centre for Aerospace Structures.

The use of composites within the aerospace, transport and marine industries has been limited due to the high cost of manufacturing composite components and their subsequent sensitivity to damage produced by impact. The use of textile manufacturing technology (stitching, braiding, weaving and knitting) in the manufacture of preforms for composite structures is currently under intense investigation due to the potential of these processes to produce low-cost, high quality structures with improved mechanical performance. This paper describes the work performed by the Cooperative Research Centre for Aerospace Structures in this area of textile composites and focuses on the areas of weaving and knitting in particular. In the area of weaving, multilayer preforms with uncrimped warp and weft yarns have been produced from E-glass. The manufacturing parameters affecting preform quality and the mechanical performance of the resultant composite material are being investigated and preliminary results are presented here. Preforms that taper in thickness have also been manufactured from E-glass and T300 carbon yarn has been used to produce T-sections. Knitting of flat fabric from E-glass has been successfully accomplished and the resulting fabric has been used to construct a number of complex-shaped fairings. Net shape prefoms for rudder tip fairings have also been knitted from E-glass.