In order to characterize the process-induced distortions of 3D thin shell composites with complex shape, the multilayered biaxial weft knitted (MBWK) fabric reinforced high-performance composite helmet was selected as the research object, and the 3D laser scanning machine was used to scan the helmet surface, then the 3D scanning data was compared with the CAD model to evaluate the deformation. The results and discussion indicated that the conventional method was workable, but the speed of convergence was slow and the calculation results were easy to drop into local optimization. According to detailed analysis, a measurement method focusing on the principle of "Feature Distance" was developed. The measurement results shown that this method can not only give accurate results, but also reduce working procedure and greatly save the computing resources, which is proved to be a feasible approach for the deformation measurement foundation of 3D thin shell textile composites.
Keywords: 3D laser scanning machine; 3D thin shell textile composites; feature distance; non-contact measurement; process-induced distortions.