A Novel 3-D Testing System for the Mechanical Properties of Fiber Fabrics and Textile Composites

To evaluate the mechanical properties of natural fiber fabrics with the characteristic of interweaving between warp and weft direction as well as textile structural composites under complex stress state, it is essential to develop experimental techniques to realize multi-axial testing for large deformation. This work proposes a novel testing device for investigating fiber fabrics and textile composites under multidimensional loads. Accuracy of the system is comparable to the testing diagnostics of the Instron 5808 previously. The homogeneity for different types of cruciforms and different biaxial tensile speeds were investigated. The effects of different loading methods, biaxial (X and Y), and 3-D loading (X, Y, and Z) on the breaking strength of the woven ramie fabric were presented. The displacement-field and shear field for composites with hole were characterized by the digital speckle correlation method.