Hybrid Woven Glass Fibre Fabric-Multi-walled Carbon Nanotube-Epoxy Composites Under Low Rate Impact

摘要

This research work addresses the issue of developing light composite materials withudincreased ability for impact energy absorption. Novel, hybrid plain woven glass fibre fabric-epoxyudlaminates with multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT) interlayers were fabricated in this studyudso that (a) only a few MWNT interlayers were placed close to the face of the laminate to beudsubjected to impact and (b) the interlayers were fabricated via innovative wide-line electrospinningudof MWNT/epoxy/solvent solutions, depositing a mixture of aligned fibres and spray on theudwoven glass fibre fabrics; the laminate was then fabricated via resin transfer moulding (RTM).udHybrid nano-micro-composite laminates with 0.15 wt% MWNT were prepared with this method andudwere subjected to single low rate impact tests. It was found that the optimised hybrid laminates hadud22% greater total penetration energy translated to 15% weight reduction in the laminate armour forudan equivalent amount of energy penetration.