Electrical resistance variation during tensile and self-heating tests conducted on thermoplastic polymer-matrix composites

Abstract

The study investigates the electrical resistance response of polymer-matrix composites (PMC) with thermoplastic PPSU (polyphenylsulfone) resin reinforced by twill 2/2 carbon fabrics during tensile and self-heating tests. During the tensile tests, the electrical resistance increases at the beginning of the tests, but drops due to the fibers/matrix debonding and subsequently amplifies abruptly until the failure of the specimens owing to the breaking of the carbon fibers. The evaluation of the stability of measurements of temperature and electrical resistance was performed during the self-heating tests. The originality of the study lies in the assessment of the fatigue limit of thermoplastic composites using two macroscopic magnitudes: temperature and electrical resistance. These two quantities provide a fairly fast estimation of the fatigue limit with a slight percentage difference of 21%.