Woven Fabrics for Composite Reinforcement: A Review

Fibres in different textile forms (woven, knitted, stitched, and non-crimp) are used to reinforce composites for multifaced applications, including automotive, aerospace, marine, rail, energy, construction, and defence sectors. Textile fabric-based fibre reinforcements for composites possess some outstanding features, such as good dimensional stability, subtle conformability, deep draw moldability/processability, lightweightness, high strength and stiffness, and low cost. The greatest advantage of textile fibre-reinforced composites is the freedom to tailor their strength and stiffness properties for specific applications. Therefore, the design of composites involves defining the fabric geometry, stacking sequence, and orientation of fibres to optimise the system. Compared to knitted, stitched, and non-crimp fabrics, woven fabric-based fibre-reinforced composites are widely used in the industry. The properties of woven fabric-reinforced composites depend on several factors, such as types of fibre, compositions, polymeric matrices, and fibre/matrix interfacial strength. Some of the advantages are reduced preforming process steps, good impact and delamination resistance, and thermo-mechanical properties. This review has been written to provide detailed information and discussions, including the fabrication processes, relationship between fabric structure and composite properties, and morphological characteristics encompassing the current state-of-the-art in woven fabrics for composite reinforcement.