Mechanical Properties of 3D Woven Basalt Fiber Composite Materials: Experiment and FEM Simulation

hree kinds differently structural 3D woven fabrics with the basalt fiber filaments tows as warp and weft yarns were fabricated on common loom by reasonable design. And, three kinds differently structural 3D woven basalt fiber composite materials were obtained with vinyl ester resin as matrix materials and 3D woven fabrics as reinforced materials, by VARTM molding process (vacuum assisted resin transfer molding process). Then, the tensile and bending properties of three kinds differently structural 3D woven basalt fiber composite materials were tested throughout the universal testing machine. Results were shew that the 3D woven basalt fiber composite materials have excellent mechanical properties, but the different structures of 3D woven fabrics as reinforced materials exhibited a big difference on mechanical properties. The paper also applied the reasonable FEM(finite element modeling) models with ANSYS software to forecast the tensile and bending properties of 3D woven basalt fiber composite materials. The good agreements of the comparisons prove the validity of the FEM models.