Effects of argon plasma treatment on carbon fiber surface characteric and its reinforcing polyimide composites interfacial properties at room and elevated temperatures

Abstract

In high temperature conditions, this can cause considerable changes in the mechanical properties of the composite. In order to determine the structural and mechanical property changes that occur in composite materials at elevated temperatures, to elucidate the damage mechanisms at elevated temperatures, and to improve the stability and durability of the materials. This paper studies how plasma treatment time affects the surface polarity, roughness, wettability and mechanical properties of carbon fibers. The results showed that the best wettability was attained after 10 min of plasma treatment, and new oxygen-containing functional groups (COO- and -C=O) developed on the fiber surface. The fundamental explanation is that during plasma surface treatment, the CH group in the bisphenol A part chain segment present in the epoxy resin sizing agent's composition is oxidized, forming an organic oxide layer. In this paper, the plasma modification technology was utilized to improve the interfacial compatibility of carbon fiber and Polyimide (PI) resin, and the interlaminar shear strength reached 103.98 MPa, up 10.49 %, and the strength retention rate was 84.3 % at 300 °C. In this paper, the plasma modification technique was employed to increase the interfacial compatibility of carbon fiber and PI resin. It was found that the Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) treated carbon fiber surfaces underwent physical and chemical changes that effectively enhanced the interfacial compatibility with the resin. However, the chemical groups and physically etched regions on the surface of the plasma-modified fibers are able to impede the relative motion of the resin to a certain extent, thus improving the interfacial strength.