Fabrication and characterisation of carbon fibre reinforced polymer rods with aluminium foam core

Abstract

Carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites are high-performance materials that have become the dominant advanced composite materials used for aerospace, automobile, sporting goods and other applications owing to their high strength, high modulus and low density. In this study, a new fabrication technique of aluminium foam was employed where NaCl was used as the space holder and argon gas was injected into the aluminium molten metal. The NaCl particles were then removed by dissolution process. The aluminium foam specimens were then wrapped with carbon fibre pre-preg and cured in a vacuum oven. The compressive properties such as compressive strength, elastic modulus and failure strain were obtained from the analysis of stress-strain curves. The results showed that carbon fibre reinforced polymer composite tubes with aluminium foam core exhibited higher compressive strength and elastic modulus compared with neat aluminium foam rods and neat carbon fibre reinforced polymer rods.