Impregnation Behavior of Polyamide 6 in Carbon Fibers and the Properties of their Composites

Abstract

Unidirectional carbon fiber (CF) / Polyamide 6 (PA6) composites were prepared by stacking fabrics method. Due to the effect of the textile structure and rough surface of PA6 fabrics, slipping of carbon fibers (CFs) during the stacking process was prevented and uniformity of impregnation was improved. Meanwhile, the usage of PA6 fabrics resulted in the minimum level of void content of composites, which improved the mechanical properties of composites. Additionally, the void content of materials was associated with the mechanical properties of composites. The flexural strength of composite reached 819.58 MPa when its void content was 3.49%. Moreover, a model based on Darcy’s law was developed to simulate the impregnation behavior of PA6 in CFs which was made by stacking fabrics method. The resin flow was observed by using optical microscopy. The evolution of void content in composites was related to the processing parameters (holding time, processing temperature and processing pressure).The comparison between the experimental and simulated data showed that the model was reliable to describe the impregnation process.