An experimental investigation of the bearing strength of weft-knitted 1 x 1 rib glass fiber composites

An experimental study has been carried out to investigate the bearing strength of a weft-knitted 1 x 1 rib glass-fiber composite plate pinned-joint in three directions: 0 degrees, 45 degrees and 90 degrees. The knitted fabrics used for the study are manufactured from the 200 tex glass yarn with epoxy resin and cured in a hot press machine. The experiments were carried out according to the ASTM D953 standard [I]. The ratio of the edge distance to the pin diameter (E/d), and the ratio of the specimen width to the pin diameter (W/d) were systematically varied during experiments. The results show that the bearing values obtained from the wale directions are stronger than the course and 45 degrees directions. Additionally, each direction reaches their upper limit bearing strengths when E/d and W/d ratios are equal or greater than 4. The knitted fabric composite material gives nearly isotropic feature. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.