Permeability and compaction behaviour of air-texturised glass fibre rovings: A characterisation study

Abstract

Air-texturisation is a process that adds bulkiness to bundles of fibres. In this study, the permeability and compaction behaviour of air-texturised glass fibre rovings are experimentally characterised and compared to conventional unidirectional rovings. Based on radial impregnation experiments and single-step compaction/decompaction tests, the following main findings are highlighted: Compared to conventional unidirectional-rovings, the normalised permeability of the air-texturised rovings was approximately three times higher along the fibre direction and 40 times higher transverse to the fibre direction. Accordingly, the degree of anisotropy was approximately one magnitude lower. At a compaction pressure of 1 and 5 bar, the air-texturised rovings were compacted to a volume fraction of $V_f=0.34$ and 0.43, respectively, which was approximately 30% lower than the volume fraction achieved for the conventional unidirectional-rovings. Finally, it was observed that the decompaction of air-texturised rovings exhibits a more distinct elastic response when unloaded.