Computed tomography for analysis of fibre distribution in carbon fibre preforms

This paper presents a method for computation of the fibre content of carbon fibre preforms from 3D computed tomography (CT) data. Quantitative estimations of the fibre content are deduced under the assumption of the presence of regions with maximum possible fibre packing. This method is used to compare the influence of different sewing techniques onto the global or the local fibre content of small preform samples. The principle of operation of the method has been verified on a 19-piece test sample. Further tests were performed to examine the influence of a reduced acquisition angle as well as of an appropiate material calibration.