Study on the Effect of Matrix Properties on the Mechanical Performance of Carbon Fabric Composites

摘要

Carbon fiber (CF) reinforced compositesusing different types of vinylester (VE)resinincludingconventional VE resinhave been prepared. The mechanical performance werecharacterized by different tests, such as tensile, mode-I interlaminarfracture toughness,tension-tension fatigue and scanning electron microscope (SEM).The experimental results showedthat the tensile strength of CF/VE composites changed at a wide range from 22.3% to 37.8% incomparison with the CF/conventional VE composite due to resin type, where the strain at failurewas varying. The tensile strength increased with an increase of adhesive strength between carbonfiber and VE resin characterized by the microdroplet test. Namely, a good correlation between thetensile strength of composites and the adhesive strength was found. On the other hand, almost aninverse correlation was found between the tensile strength of composites and the interlaminarfracture toughness of composites obtained by DCB (double cantilever beams) tests. There was noapparent correlation found between the strain at failure for pure resins and the tensile strength ofcomposites.Thefatigue life of CF/VE compositesincreased as well as the tensile strength with anincrease of the adhesive strength between carbon fiber and the resin. The samples sometimesurvived 1000 times longer than that of CF/conventional VE compositewhen the maximum cyclestress was 70% of the tensile strength of the strongest composite.