Thermo-mechanical modeling of C/C 3D orthogonal and angle interlock woven fabric composites in high temperature environment

Abstract Carbon/Carbon (C/C) 3D textile composites are very popular in various fields of applications such as aerospace, defence, and chemical industries due to their attractive mechanical and thermal properties. Consequently, investigation of these properties of 3D C/C textile composites has become an essential primary requirement for thermo-structural analysis of composites structures in high-temperature applications. In this study, a finite element based Representative Volume Element (RVE) has been developed to perform the thermo-mechanical analysis. Thermo-mechanical properties of 3D C/C orthogonal interlock woven fabric composite (OIWFC) and angle interlock woven fabric composite (AIWFC) are investigated. The RVE analysis for the evaluation of thermo-mechanical properties has been carried out with the implementation of multi-scale modeling techniques and periodic boundary conditions (BCs). The micro-scale analysis predicts the thermo-mechanical properties of fiber yarn/tow. Further, yarn properties are incorporated into the meso-scale model to predict the thermo-mechanical properties of 3D C/C woven fabric composites. The variation of mechanical constants and coefficient of thermal expansions (CTEs) values have been investigated within the temperature range from 300 K to 2500 K. It has been extended for the prediction of variation of thermo-mechanical properties with respect to the number of weft layers along the thickness direction of the 3D orthogonal interlock woven fabric composites. The validation study has been carried out and present FE based numerical results agree well with numerical and experimental results from the available literature.