Integrally 3D Woven/3D Braided Composite Joining Elements For Ship Construction

GFRP cored panels are common in current shipboard structure design. Robust and practical means of joining these and other composite materials to one another and to any substructure are critical to forming large structures. 3TEX will develop and test joining methods and materials based on 3WEAVETM, and 3BRAIDTM, formation of integral shaped fabric preforms. "Butt" and "T" joints formed by insertion of panel edges into pockets in, "H", "T", and "double T" union elements. Investigation will examine rigid, pre-impregnated, and dry preforms. Use of the dry preforms allows the easiest storage by employing subsequent infusion of the joint preforms with the panels in-place, to bind all elements together. Variants that provide through-joint holes for fastening to sub-structures will also be examined. Further, composite insert and hard points, which exploit the increased through thickness fiber, and thread strengths of "very" thick single ply fabric preforms will also be demonstrated. The strengths of inter-panel, and hard point joints will be gauged against existing methods. The cost, and practicality of these methods and materials will be assessed. It is expected that these methods will prove both more practical, more robust, and lower cost than current methods.