Elastic behavior of composites reinforced by 3D printed tubular lattice braid textures

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an innovative transversal tubular braid texture and to study the elastic behavior of its 3 D printed structure comparatively to 3 D printed longitudinal tubular braid texture (maypole) to be used as reinforcement.

Regarding the lack of proper machines for the production of the proposed texture, the structure of samples was produced as a tubular lattice braid texture using a 3 D printer with the fused deposition modeling method subsequent to simulation by Rhinoceros software. The produced specimens were composited by polyurethane resin. The composite samples were evaluated by the split disk mechanical test to obtain their hoop stress. The structures of the reinforced composites were theoretically analyzed by ANSYS software.

The results of the mechanical test and theoretical analysis showed that the composites reinforced with transversal tubular lattice braid have higher strength compared to the composites reinforced with longitudinal ones. This assured that the composite reinforced by transversal tubular lattice braid is reliable to be used as high-performance tube for different applications.

Further work is carried out to produce the innovated complex structure continuously by a specially designed machine and fibrous materials to reinforce tubular composites in an industrial continual process to be applied for high-pressure fluids flows.