Development of through-thickness reinforcement in advanced composites incorporating rigid cellular foams

This paper presents a method of joining carbon-fibre plies and rigid cellular foam core with stitching for producing light-weight composite structures. After resin infusion and consolidation, the stitched sandwich panel exhibits superior damage tolerance as well as improved transverse properties due to the presence of through-thickness fibre reinforcement. First part of the paper deals with the conceptual development of a multi-needle stitching machine for rigid foams. A needle penetration model for computing the penetration forces has been reported - there is a good agreement between the experimental and theoretical penetration force-displacement curves. A number of sandwich panels with orthogonal and bias stitch orientations have been developed and examined for stitch quality with the aid of X-ray tomography. The paper also presents results from quasi-static indentation, three-point bending and transverse compression tests, on both the stitched and unstitched sandwich panels. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.