Abstract
Industry needs new materials that present very high structural characteristic, such as high strength, low weight and high damage tolerance. To obtain these characteristics a new class of materials has been introduced: Fibre Metal Laminate (FML); they consist in metal sheets alternated to composite material layers: in such manner, the good characteristics of each constituent material confer the utmost properties to the FMLs. However, the mechanical properties depend, among other factors, on the thickness and the numerousness of the layers constituting the FML, as well as the interface between metal and composite. Therefore, in this paper, the influence of the abovementioned factors on the material answer to flexural load was investigated. In particular, different kinds of laminates were produced varying the layers adhesion and the layers thickness, but maintaining unaltered the metal/composite volume ratio and the total laminate thickness. Then their structural behaviour was investigated through three-point bending test, and it was found that the flexural behaviour was affected by both the investigated factors; in fact, the maximum flexural load diminished incrementing the number of layers and inserting an adhesive layer at the metal/composite interface.
Highlights
S everal industrial fields, like automotive, aeronautics and sports goods, need new materials presenting very high structural characteristics, such as high strength, low weight and high damage tolerance. These characteristics can be obtained by introducing a new class of materials: Fibre Metal Laminate (FML); they consist of metal sheets alternated to composite material layers: in such manner, the good characteristics of each constituent material confer the utmost properties to the FMLs, such as high strength, high damage tolerance and low density [1]
These extraordinary structural properties are due to the particular characteristics of the materials the FMLs are made of; the FMLs made of aluminium and glass fibre composite, that are widespread in the aeronautical field, are less robust than those based on CFRP [2]; CARALL are about 10% tougher than GLARE [3]
A work has been carried out aiming at analysing the behaviour of laminates with the same composite/metal volume fraction ratio and different layers thicknesses by Wu et al [11]. These authors studied the flexural behaviour of carbon fibre/magnesium FMLs, discovering that the flexural modulus linearly decreased with the layer thicknesses, while no differences were observed for the flexural strength
Summary
S everal industrial fields, like automotive, aeronautics and sports goods, need new materials presenting very high structural characteristics, such as high strength, low weight and high damage tolerance. Hu et al [7] analysed the flexural properties of FMLs made of carbon fibres reinforced PMR polyimide and titanium, finding a good structural strength at both room and high temperature They found that the micro roughness of the titanium surface layer improved the adhesion between composite material and titanium itself. The effect of the metal sheet location along the laminate thickness was studied by Dhaliwal and Newaz [10], that produced and tested some CARALL specimens presenting carbon fibre laminate as outside layers They compared the flexural properties of those laminates with that of common CARALL, that had aluminium layers outside, determining a superior strength for their material. The aim of the present work regards the analysis of the flexural behaviour of CARALL specimens, studying the influence of both layer thickness and the adhesion solution between CFRP laminate and aluminium sheet. The layer thickness is a significant factor concerning the structural behaviour of FMLs that should be taken into consideration for the product design, even if the study of this topic has been infrequently explored [11]
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