A textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibers. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, hemp, or other materials to produce long strands. Textiles are formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting or tatting, felting, or braiding.
A composite material is a material made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties that, when combined, produce a material with characteristics different from the individual components. The individual components remain separate and distinct within the finished structure, differentiating composites from mixtures and solid solutions.
Carbon fibers or carbon fibres are fibers about 5–10 micrometres in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. Carbon fibers have several advantages including high stiffness, high tensile strength, low weight, high chemical resistance, high temperature tolerance and low thermal expansion. These properties have made carbon fiber very popular in aerospace, civil engineering, military, and motorsports, along with other competition sports. However, they are relatively expensive when compared with similar fibers, such as glass fibers or plastic fibers.
Satin is a weave that typically has a glossy surface and a dull back, one of three fundamental types of textile weaves along with plain weave and twill. The satin weave is characterized by four or more fill or weft yarns floating over a warp yarn, four warp yarns floating over a single weft yarn. Floats are missed interfacings, for example where the warp yarn lies on top of the weft in a warp-faced satin. These floats explain the high luster and even sheen, as unlike in other weaves, the light reflecting is not scattered as much by the fibres. Satin is usually a warp-faced weaving technique in which warp yarns are "floated" over weft yarns, although there are also weft-faced satins. If a fabric is formed with a satin weave using filament fibres such as silk, polyester or nylon, the corresponding fabric is termed a satin, although some definitions insist that the fabric be made from silk. If the yarns used are short-staple yarns such as cotton, the fabric formed is considered a sateen.
Fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP) is a composite material made of a polymer matrix reinforced with fibres. The fibres are usually glass, carbon, aramid, or basalt. Rarely, other fibres such as paper, wood, or asbestos have been used. The polymer is usually an epoxy, vinylester, or polyester thermosetting plastic, though phenol formaldehyde resins are still in use.
The term scrim has two separate meanings in terms of fabric. In each case, it refers to woven material, one a finely woven lightweight fabric widely used in theatre, the other a heavy, coarse woven material used for reinforcement in both building and canvasmaking.
Filament winding is a fabrication technique mainly used for manufacturing open (cylinders) or closed end structures. This process involves winding filaments under tension over a rotating mandrel. The mandrel rotates around the spindle while a delivery eye on a carriage traverses horizontally in line with the axis of the rotating mandrel, laying down fibers in the desired pattern or angle. The most common filaments are glass or carbon and are impregnated in a bath with resin as they are wound onto the mandrel. Once the mandrel is completely covered to the desired thickness, the resin is cured. Depending on the resin system and its cure characteristics, often the rotating mandrel is placed in an oven or placed under radiant heaters until the part is cured. Once the resin has cured, the mandrel is removed or extracted, leaving the hollow final product. For some products such as gas bottles, the 'mandrel' is a permanent part of the finished product forming a liner to prevent gas leakage or as a barrier to protect the composite from the fluid to be stored.
Sailcloth encompasses a wide variety of materials that span those from natural fibers, such as flax, hemp or cotton in various forms of sail canvas, to synthetic fibers, including nylon, polyester, aramids, and carbon fibers in a variety of woven, spun and molded textiles.
A biocomposite is a composite material formed by a matrix (resin) and a reinforcement of natural fibers. These kind of materials often mimic the structure of the living materials involved in the process keeping the strengthening properties of the matrix that was used, but always providing biocompatibility. The matrix phase is formed by polymers derived from renewable and nonrenewable resources. The matrix is important to protect the fibers from environmental degradation and mechanical damage, to hold the fibers together and to transfer the loads on it. In addition, biofibers are the principal components of biocomposites, which are derived from biological origins, for example fibers from crops, recycled wood, waste paper, crop processing byproducts or regenerated cellulose fiber (viscose/rayon). The interest in biocomposites is rapidly growing in terms of industrial applications and fundamental research, due to its great benefits. Biocomposites can be used alone, or as a complement to standard materials, such as carbon fiber. Advocates of biocomposites state that use of these materials improve health and safety in their production, are lighter in weight, have a visual appeal similar to that of wood, and are environmentally superior.
The manufacture of textiles is one of the oldest of human technologies. To make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fibre from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving, which turns yarn into cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. For decoration, the process of colouring yarn or the finished material is dyeing. For more information of the various steps, see textile manufacturing.
Chemical vapour infiltration (CVI) is a ceramic engineering process whereby matrix material is infiltrated into fibrous preforms by the use of reactive gases at elevated temperature to form fiber-reinforced composites. The earliest use of CVI was the infiltration of fibrous alumina with chromium carbide. CVI can be applied to the production of carbon-carbon composites and ceramic matrix composites. A similar technique is chemical vapour deposition (CVD), the main difference being that the deposition process of CVD is on hot bulk surfaces, while the deposition process of CVI is on porous substrates.
Ripstop fabrics are woven fabrics, often made of nylon, using a special reinforcing technique that makes them resistant to tearing and ripping. During weaving, (thick) reinforcement threads are interwoven at regular intervals in a crosshatch pattern. The intervals are typically 5 to 8 millimeters. Thin and lightweight ripstop fabrics have a 3-dimensional structure due to the thicker threads being interwoven in thinner cloth. Older lightweight ripstop fabrics display the thicker interlocking thread patterns in the material quite prominently, but more modern weaving techniques make the ripstop threads less obvious. A similar effect can be achieved by weaving two or three fine yarns together at smaller intervals.
Ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are a subgroup of composite materials as well as a subgroup of ceramics. They consist of ceramic fibres embedded in a ceramic matrix. The matrix and fibres can consist of any ceramic material, whereby carbon and carbon fibres can also be considered a ceramic material.
Textile-reinforced concrete is a type of reinforced concrete in which the usual steel reinforcing bars are replaced by textile materials. Instead of using a metal cage inside the concrete, this technique uses a fabric cage inside the same.
Carbon fiber reinforced polymer, carbon fiber reinforced plastic, or carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic, is an extremely strong and light fiber-reinforced plastic which contains carbon fibers. The alternative spelling 'fibre' is common in British Commonwealth countries. CFRPs can be expensive to produce but are commonly used wherever high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness (rigidity) are required, such as aerospace, superstructure of ships, automotive, civil engineering, sports equipment, and an increasing number of consumer and technical applications.
Three-dimensional composites utilize fiber preforms constructed from yarns or tows arranged into complex three-dimensional structures. These can be created from a 3D weaving process, a 3D braiding process, or a 3D lay of short fibers. A resin is applied to the 3D preform to create the composite material. Three-dimensional composites are utilized in highly engineered and highly technical applications in order to achieve complex mechanical properties. Three-dimensional composites are engineered to react to stresses and strains in ways that are not possible with traditional composite materials composed of single direction tows, or woven composites, or stacked laminate materials.
Advanced composite materials (ACMs) are also known as advanced polymer matrix composites. These are generally characterized or determined by unusually high strength fibres with unusually high stiffness, or modulus of elasticity characteristics, compared to other materials, while bound together by weaker matrices. These are termed advanced composite materials (ACM) in comparison to the composite materials commonly in use such as reinforced concrete, or even concrete itself. The high strength fibers are also low density while occupying a large fraction of the volume
Automated fiber placement (AFP), also known as advanced fiber placement, is an advanced method of manufacturing composite materials. These materials, which offer lighter weight with equivalent or greater strength than metals, are increasingly used in airframes and other industrial products.
CFSMC, or Carbon Fiber Sheet Molding Compound, is a ready to mold carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite material used in compression molding. While traditional SMC utilizes chopped glass fibers in a polymer resin, CFSMC utilizes chopped carbon fibers. The length and distribution of the carbon fibers is more regular, homogeneous, and constant than the standard glass SMC. CFSMC offers much higher stiffness and usually higher strength than standard SMC, but at a higher cost.
Advanced thermoplastic composites (ACM) have a high strength fibres held together by a thermoplastic matrix. Advanced thermoplastic composites are becoming more widely used in the aerospace, marine, automotive and energy industry. This is due to the decreasing cost and superior strength to weight ratios, over metallic parts. Advance thermoplastic composite have excellent damage tolerance, corrosion resistant, high fracture toughness, high impact resistance, good fatigue resistance, low storage cost, and infinite shelf life. Thermoplastic composites also have the ability to be formed and reformed, repaired and fusion welded.
