Micromechanical Modeling and Design Optimization of 2-D Triaxial Braided Composites

A micromechanical model for 2-D triaxial braided composites is presented. The tow arrangement in the representative unit cell is modeled by solving the packing problem using analytical optimization, avoiding the need to measure the geometric properties experimentally. These results are used in the development of a closed-form micromechanical model predicting the full 3-D stiffness matrix of the homogenized representative unit cell. The results show good agreement with experimental data; however, the true significance of this work is that it enables design optimization using 2-D triaxial braided composites because the need for experimental calibration for each set of design variables is eliminated.