Adhesion Improvement of Thermoplastics-Based Composites by Atmospheric Plasma and UV Treatments

The present work is concerned with adhesive bonding of thermoplastic composites used in general aerospace applications, including polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), polyetherimide (PEI) and polyetheretherketone (PEEK) carbon fibre composites. Three different surface treatments have been applied to the PEEK, PPS and PEI-based composites in order to...

Rapid surface activation of carbon fibre reinforced PEEK and PPS composites by high-power UV-irradiation for the adhesive joining of dissimilar materials

Carbon fibre reinforced poly-etherether-ketone (PEEK) and poly-phenylene-sulfide (PPS) composites were rapidly surface-treated by high-power UV light, and then adhesively bonded to aluminium 2024-T3 and carbon fibre/epoxy composites. The results of a single lap-shear joint test demonstrated that a UV-treatment lasting for 5 s was sufficient...

The influence of interlayer/epoxy adhesion on the mode-I and mode-II fracture response of carbon fibre/epoxy composites interleaved with thermoplastic veils

The compatibility between the majority of thermoplastic veils (TPVs) and epoxies is typically poor, owing to the inherently low surface energies of thermoplastics. This tends to largely affect the toughening performance of TPVs as interlayer materials of carbon fibre/epoxy composites. The traditional methods for surface activation of...

Effect of interlaying UV-irradiated PEEK fibres on the mechanical, impact and fracture response of aerospace-grade carbon fibre/epoxy composites

Poly-etherether-ketone (PEEK) fibres (average diameter 30μm) were surface-activated by a UV-irradiation technique, and then used as interlayers of carbon fibre/epoxy composites. The results of a flatwise tensile test demonstrated a significant improvement in the PEEK fibre/epoxy adhesion upon the UV-treatment, i.e. the ultimate strength...

Failure mode and effect analysis of a subsea production system