Stiffness to Weight Ratio of Various Mechanical and Thermal Loaded Hyper Composite Plate Structures

Abstract

In this study, several models of the rocket fins were made of hyper composite materials (with two or more reinforced materials) with different volume fractions of components used to produce isotropic composite plate structures. The reinforcement of polyester resin material was done in two ways, with fibre reinforcement and powder reinforcement. The types of fibresthat used were chopped glass fibre and chopped carbon fibre, and the type of powder used was carbon powder. A concentrated load was applied to the models in the form of a cantilever plate. The effect of adding carbon powder on the stiffness to weight ratio and the effect of temperature on this stiffness to weight ratio were studied and discussed. It was observed that hybridization improves the properties of composite materials at certainspecific volume fractions of carbon powder. The best percentage of improvement of the value of stiffness was69.87% in a specimenmade of 50% polyester, 30% glass fibres, and 20% carbon powderin terms of models reinforced with glass fibres, while for models reinforced with carbon fibres, it was 79.94% in the model made of 60% polyester, 30% carbon fibre, and 10% carbon powder. In addition, the results showed that an increase in temperature leads to a decrease in the stiffness to weight ratio for all models. The smallest effect of temperature on the stiffness to weight ratio was shown in the sample composed of 50% polyester, 30% glass fibres, and 20% carbon powder, at 45.83% for the models reinforced with chopped glass fibres, and in the model made of 60% polyester, 20% carbon fibres, and 20% carbon powder at 57.54% for models reinforced with carbon fibres.