Effectively enhanced interlaminar shear strength of carbon fiber fabric/epoxy composites by oxidized short carbon fibers at an extremely low content

Abstract

Carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites have high specific strength and modulus but relatively low interlaminar shear strength (ILSS). Herein treated short carbon fibers (SCFs) with ethanol and concentrated nitric acid are added to epoxy matrix to improve the ILSS of carbon fabric (CF)/epoxy composite. The effects of SCF content and treatment (oxidization) time are systematically examined on the ILSS of the CF/EP composite. An effective enhancement of 13.5% in the ILSS of the CF/EP composite is achieved by oxidized-SCFs at an extremely low content of 0.07 wt% relative to the epoxy matrix. The main mechanisms for enhancing the ILSS of CF/EP composite are explored by the addition of oxidized-SCFs. This strategy is of great practical significance since SCFs are very cheap and also can be easily dispersed in epoxy resins compared with nano-fillers etc. previously used for this purpose.