On the mix-mode fracture of carbon fibre/epoxy composites interleaved with various thermoplastic veils

On the mix-mode fracture of carbon fibre/epoxy composites interleaved with various thermoplastic veils

Quan, D. (TU Delft Structural Integrity & Composites; Shandong University)
Yue, Dongsheng (Shandong University)
Ma, Yannan (Shandong University)
Zhao, Guoqun (Shandong University)
Alderliesten, R.C. (TU Delft Structural Integrity & Composites)

2022

This work studied the mix mode-I/II fracture behaviour of an aerospace-grade carbon fibre/epoxy composite that was interlayer-toughened by Polyamide-12 (PA), Polyphenylene-sulphide (PPS), Polyimide (PI), Polyethersulfone (PES) and Polyethylenimine (PEI) fibres. During the laminate curing process, the PA fibres melted, the PPS and PI fibres kept in their original form and the PES and PEI fibres dissolved in the epoxy matrix. This resulted in different toughening mechanisms of the veils for the mix mode-I/II fracture of the laminates, which was studied using a cracked lap-shear test. The main toughening mechanisms were observed to be plastic deformation and failure of the thermoplastic resin for the meltable PA veils, thermoplastic fibre debonding and bridging for the intact PPS and PI veils, and thermoplastic particle debonding and plastic void growth for the dissolvable PES and PEI veils. The experimental results revealed that the fibre debonding and bridging mechanism was superior for toughness enhancement, followed by the thermoplastic particle debonding and plastic void growth mechanism. For instance, interleaving the PPS and PEI veils increased the mix-mode fracture propagation energy of the laminates by 345% and 171%, respectively. However, the toughening performance of the PA and PI veils was poor, since the crack mainly propagated at the vicinity around the interlayer/laminate interface.

Carbon fibre/epoxy composite
Interlayer toughening
Mix mode-I/II fracture
Thermoplastic veils

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a3ee9eed-8b57-4bf4-a4cb-9cfb8be1fc03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coco.2022.101230

2023-01-02

2452-2139

Composites Communications, 33

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2022 D. Quan, Dongsheng Yue, Yannan Ma, Guoqun Zhao, R.C. Alderliesten