Bioinspired 3D helical fibers toughened thermosetting composites

Abstract

Thanks to the special helical structure, natural composites such as shell, wood, and bone have remarkable toughness, strength and damage tolerance. Herein, a bioinspired spiral nylon monofilament/epoxy composite is developed, which is a representative example of helical fiber/thermosetting composites. The relationship between toughness and strength of composites was studied by controlling parameters of the helical fibers. As a result, the impact resistance is regularly increased by the increase of pitch and the decrease of helix fiber angle. With a single-layer addition, the impact toughness of composites is increased by 150% without decreasing the mechanical strength and that is increased by 450% in the case of three-layer addition. The proposed toughening mechanism was verified by finite element analysis and dynamic mechanical analysis, which including 3D stress dispersion, the interlocking fibrous building interface, and energy absorption capacity of viscoelastic spring polymer. Furthermore, the toughness and strength of the composites is improved by 310% in single layer via surface modification of spiral fibers. The introduction of the three-dimensional spiral structure into the composite is demonstrated to be a unique strategy to overcome the trade-off between toughness and strength of high-performance composite materials.