Bending Properties of Five-Layer Biaxial Weft Knitted Fabric Reinforced Composite Materials

Five-layer biaxial weft knitted (FBWK) fabric is one kind of multilayered biaxial weft knitted (MBWK) fabric. FBWK fabric is made of carbon fiber as inserted yarns and stitched with polyester yarns, and it has been impregnated with epoxy via resin transfer molding (RTM) technique to manufacture the composite plates. The bending properties of the FBWK fabric reinforced composite are studied with the three-point bending test method. The bending properties of the FBWK fabric reinforced composite materials with different fiber volume fraction have been investigated. The results show that the relationship between bending load and deflection is obviously linear before reaching the maximum load. Within a certain range, the bending strength of this kind of composites increases with the fiber volume fraction increasing. When the fiber volume fraction is 57%, the bending strength is 1051.4 MPa.