The composite structures with lightweight, excellent mechanical and multifunctional properties are crucial to apply in the fields of industrial, civil as well as aerospace engineering. In this study, 3D glass woven spacer fabric reinforced epoxy resin composites (3DWSCs) were designed and manufactured to optimize its excellent mechanical, thermal and lightweight features of the 3DWSCs along with its great potentials in practical applications. Due to the multiple dimensional and embeddable characterizations, the three-dimensional woven structure is of great potential as a platform for multifunctional composites. We proposed a light-weight and high-gain three-dimensional woven spacer microstrip antenna (3DWS-MA) for the first time by integrating microstrip antenna into 3D woven spacer composites. The single-element 3DWS-MA showed superb electromagnetic performance with the gain value of 7.1 dB and excellent structural integrity. Our work demonstrated that the 3d woven fabric composites are capable of being a promising platform for advanced multifunctional structures.

Dr. Fujun Xu is the Associate Professor of the College of Textiles of Donghua University; He is a visiting scholar in University of Maryland (USA) from 2017-2018; and Joint Doctoral Student in NC State University, (USA) from 2008-2010. Dr. Xu’s main scientific interests include: High Performance Fibers and Fiber Surface Modification; Multifunctional Fabrics; Textile Reinforced Composites; 3D Woven Fabrics/Composites. In the above fields, Prof. Xu has more than 100 peer-reviewed papers published in the journals of Adv. Mater.; ACS Nano; ACS.AMI; JMC-C; Compos. Sci. Technol; Prof. Xu hold 30 Chinese invented Patents and received more than 20 Rewards from government for the “Science and Technology Competitions”. He serves as Editorial board members of the Composites Part B: Engineering; Journal of Textile Science & Fashion Technology; International Journal of Materials Science; Senior member of the China Institute of Composite Materials and invited reviewer for more than 30 international journals.