**4. Conclusions**

Two sets of composites were made from WL-CF nonwoven mats and were consolidated and tested for tensile, flex and ILSS. The mats of each set were prepared through the two mixing regimes, Method 1 and Method 2 presented in [5]. The composites' isotropy was validated by computational method through OOF. OOF demonstrated higher isotropy in composites made through Method 2 versus those made through Method 1, thanks to the optimal fiber dispersion achieved in Method 2. The tensile properties were analyzed and compared against the Halpin–Tsai predictions for Young's modulus and the Hahn's approach for ultimate tensile strength. The optimal fiber dispersion improved the values of Young's modulus by 16% from Method 1 and more closely aligned with the Halpin–Tsai prediction by 10%. The e ffect of optimal fiber dispersion in Method 2 reflected as well on the flexural properties, which increase by 17% and 23% for modulus and strength, respectively. As for the ILSS, Method 2 showed a superiority of 83%, which may be attributed to the uniform fiber distribution. With these findings it can be concluded that use of WL CF nonwoven mats produced by the innovative Method 2 proposed in [5] should be adopted for composites production. These optimized mats helped bridge the gap between theoretical and experimental values, enabling the design and fabrication of complex geometry parts with long discontinuous fibers through low-cost manufacturing techniques, such as out of autoclave methods and VARTM.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, H.G., A.A.H. and U.K.V.; methodology, H.G., A.A.H.; software, S.K., J.A.; validation, H.G., A.A.H. and S.K.; formal analysis, H.G.; investigation, H.G.; resources, U.K.V.; data curation, H.G.; writing—original draft preparation, H.G.; writing—review and editing, H.G., A.A.H., S.K., J.A. and U.K.V.; visualization, H.G. and A.A.H; supervision, U.K.V.; project administration, H.G. and U.K.V.; funding acquisition, U.K.V. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** The research was funded in part by the O ffice of Energy E fficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), U.S. Department of Energy, under Award Number DE-EE0006926. Support from the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI-The Composites Institute is gratefully acknowledged.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors want to acknowledge and thank Stephen Langer from the Mathematical Software Group, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for providing access to the OOF software. His generous help made this work possible. This research was supported by the DOE O ffice of Energy E fficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Advanced Manufacturing O ffice and used resources at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, a DOE-EERE User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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