Analytical and experimental evaluation of elastic properties of vacuum assisted resin infusion molded polymer composites with eight‐harness woven fiber mats

Abstract An analytical and experimental evaluation of elastic properties of composite materials under tensile load is presented in this paper. The analysis focuses on composite materials molded by vacuum assisted resin infusion molding (VARIM). The molded composite structure consists of AS4‐8 harness carbon fiber mats and a high‐temperature polymer (5250‐4‐RTM). The analytical model presented is adapted and formulated using optical microscopy observations of cross sections of samples molded by VARIM. Effects of resin degree of cure, fiber undulation, and resin rich areas between fiber bundles are addressed in the model. An experimental case study is presented to evaluate the accuracy of the adapted analytical model. The evaluation shows a reasonable agreement between the experimental and analytical results. POLYM. COMPOS., 29:63–71, 2008. © 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers