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## Warp Clock 

Warp indicates the longitudinal fibers of a fabric. The warp is the high strength direction due to the straightness of the fibers. A warp clock is used to describe direction of fibers on a diagram, spec sheet, or manufacturer’s sheets. If the warp clock is not available on the fabric, the orientation is defaulted to zero as the fabric comes off the roll. Therefore, 90° to zero is the width of the fabric across. [Figure 7-3] 

## Fiber Forms 

All product forms generally begin with spooled unidirectional raw fibers packaged as continuous strands. An individual fiber is called a filament. The word strand is also used to identify an individual glass fiber. Bundles of filaments are identified as tows, yarns, or rovings. Fiberglass yarns are twisted, while Kevlar$^{®}$ yarns are not. Tows and rovings do not have any twist. Most fibers are available as dry fiber that needs to be impregnated (impreg) with a resin before use or prepreg materials where the resin is already applied to the fiber. 

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## Roving 

A roving is a single grouping of filament or fiber ends, such as 20-end or 60-end glass rovings. All filaments are in the same direction and they are not twisted. Carbon rovings are usually identified as 3K, 6K, or 12K rovings, K meaning 1,000 filaments. Most applications for roving products utilize mandrels for filament winding and then resin cure to final configuration. 

## Unidirectional (Tape) 

Unidirectional prepreg tapes have been the standard within the aerospace industry for many years, and the fiber is typically impregnated with thermosetting resins. The most common method of manufacture is to draw collimated raw (dry) strands into the impregnation machine where hot melted resins are combined with the strands using heat and pressure. Tape products have high strength in the fiber direction and virtually no strength across the fibers. The fibers are held in place by the resin. Tapes have a higher strength than woven fabrics. [Figure 7-4] 

## Bidirectional (Fabric) 

Most fabric constructions offer more flexibility for layup of complex shapes than straight unidirectional tapes offer. Fabrics offer the option for resin impregnation either by solution or the hot melt process. Generally, fabrics used for structural applications use like fibers or strands of the same weight or yield in both the warp (longitudinal) and fill (transverse) directions. For aerospace structures, tightly woven fabrics are usually the choice to save weight, minimizing resin void size, and maintaining fiber orientation during the fabrication process. 

