Computational Modeling of the Electromagnetic Characteristics of Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites with Different Weave Structures.

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites (CFRPC) are of great interest in the aerospace and automotive industries due to their exceptional mechanical properties. Carbon fibers are typically woven and inter-laced perpendicularly in warps and wefts to form a carbon fabric that can be embedded in a binding matrix. The warps and wefts can be interlaced in different patterns called weaving structures. The primary weaving structures are the plain, twill, and satin weaves, which give different mechanical composite properties. The goal of this work is to computationally investigate the dependence of CFRPC microwave and terahertz electromagnetic characteristics on weave structure. These bands are good candidates for the Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) of CFRPC since their wavelengths are comparable to the main weave features. 3D full wave electromagnetic simulations of several different weave models have been performed using a finite element (FEM) simulator, which is able to accurately model the complex weave structure. The computational experiments demonstrate that the reflection of electromagnetic waves from CFRPC depend sensitively on weave structure. The reflection spectra calculated in this work can be used to identify the optimal frequencies for the NDE of each weave structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]