Abstract
The inherently brittle nature and the susceptibility to impact damage hinder the use of carbon/epoxy composite in some areas. In this study, poly ether ether ketone (PEEK) microparticles were incorporated to increase the resistance to delamination and interlaminar fracture toughness. A hand lay-up technique followed by compression molding was used to fabricate composite. The influence of PEEK particles was evaluated by tensile, flexural, short beam shear (SBS), compression, and Charpy impact test. The Barcol hardness, density, fiber volume fraction, and void content were also determined. According to the result, a maximum improvement in the tensile and flexural strength was observed for 2% incorporation of PEEK particles. However, there is downturn found in the flexural modulus. Moreover, a notable increment in the matrix-dominated properties (short beam shear, compression, and Charpy impact strength) was found with the addition of the PEEK particles.
Highlights
The research and development in the aerospace, automobile, wind-energy, and modern sports equipment industry are strongly influenced by the trend of lightweight materials, having outstanding mechanical properties and durability in a range of environments
The systematic study of the carbon/epoxy composite illuminated that the incorporation of the poly ether ether ketone (PEEK) particles decreases the density of composite because of the lower bulk density of PEEK particles as compared to that of carbon fiber
Despite low surface energy of PEEK, the improvements in short beam shear (SBS), compression, and Charpy impact properties may be an indication that PEEK particles effectively increase the matrix dominated properties in carbon/epoxy composite by providing different toughness mechanism including the debonding of PEEK particles, voids growth, crack pinning, and crack deflection
Summary
The research and development in the aerospace, automobile, wind-energy, and modern sports equipment industry are strongly influenced by the trend of lightweight materials, having outstanding mechanical properties and durability in a range of environments. Some drawbacks associated with high a percentage of fillers/particles content, like increased resin viscosity and poor dispersion, will deteriorate the mechanical properties of the composite material [12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. Another technique used to increase the toughness is the addition of miscible thermoplastic or thermoelastic materials in epoxy. Controlling the morphology, distribution, and the size of this reaction-induced second phase is a International Journal of Polymer Science (a)
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