ANISOTROPIC INPLANE PERMEABILITY OF FABRIC MEDIA

An elegant procedure is proposed for obtaining components of the orthotropic or anisotropic in-plane permeability tensor from experimental data on flow front position and time. A radial flow geometry allows the shape of the advancing flow front to be dictated by the in-plane permeability of the fabric media. The directional permeabilities in the fabric plane are directly calculated from fluid and fabric properties together with data from the mold filling experiment (resin injection pressure and flow front position with time). The simplicity of the apparatus and proposed analytical procedure permit easy testing and comparison of different types of fibrous media.