An experimental study on mechanical properties of GFRP braid-pultruded composite rods

In this work, a conventional textile braiding machine was modified and added to a pultrusion line in order to produce glass fiber reinforced composite rods by braiding-pultrusion technique. Braid-pultruded (BP) rods were produced with three braid roving linear densities and also with three different braid angles. To study the influence of overbraiding on mechanical properties of pultruded rods, unidirectional (UD) rods, without braided fabric, were produced, as well. All rod types were subjected to tensile, bending and torsion tests. The experimental results showed that BP rods have considerably higher shear modulus, but lower tensile modulus and flexural rigidity than those of UD pultruded rods, when fiber volume fraction is kept constant. Moreover, rods produced with higher braid roving linear densities had better torsional, but lower tensile and flexural properties. The highest shear modulus was observed in BP rods with braid angle of 45°.