Determination of elastic properties of triax composite materials

Triax composite materials are textile composites made of tows that are woven along three in-plane directions. For satellite applications, the structure is made of only one single layer of the triax fabric. As such, the structure has open holes within its boundaries. The challenge of the problem is how to determine the properties of a material/structure with open holes. This paper presents methods developed for the determination of elastic constants for this triax material. Both the equivalent energy approach and the experimental method are used to determine the elastic constants.