Advanced textile technologies for the cost effective manufacturing of high performance composites

For some decades the aerospace industry has applied composite materials, in particular CFRP, because of their high weight-specific stiffness and strength as well as their excellent fatigue performance. However, the time-consuming and therefore expensive manufacturing process prevented these materials from wide spread use in other industrial sectors. In recent years techniques were developed for processing advanced textile preforms offering both a potential for reducing manufacturing costs and for improving the damage tolerance of these materials compared to conventional prepreg technology. Processes such as 2D and 3D weaving, 2D and 3D braiding, warp-knitting, tailored fibre placement and stitching, for instance, allow the production of integral preforms which help to reduce the manual work and hence the processing time. This paper will give a general overview of major research activities and development trends in textile preforming with focus to new stitching technologies. An evaluation of these techniques for various application fields and some results of preform development activities will be presented.