Effect of microcapsules addition on impact properties of carbon fiber reinforced polymer and glass fiber reinforced polymer composites

Abstract

Fiber reinforced composites are ubiquitous in the aerospace and automobile industries due to their significant superior characteristics such as strength to weight ratio, corrosion resistance, fatigue resistance, specific strength and specific modulus. Impact is common kind of damage found in aircraft and automobile structures. The cause of damage may be sudden strike from a bird, falling of tool during servicing or striking of debris during transportation. Hence, predicting the behavior of composites under impact is necessary and also some mechanism to repair these damages should be found. So, this work aims at determining the effect of inclusion of microcapsules containing healing agents on impact behavior of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composite. The resin stuffed and hardener stuffed microcapsules were prepared by in-situ polymerization. These capsules of diameter ranging from 0.19 µm to 0.30 µm were mixed in epoxy resin system during the manufacturing of FRP laminates. Experimental investigation was performed under ambient conditions to observe the variation in impact properties of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) and Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) composites. It was observed that value of peak load was boosted with addition of capsules and more energy was absorbed during elastic deformation and less during plastic deformation. Also, partial healing was observed due to addition of capsules at 2.5 wt. %.