The variance on the shock response of a carbon fibre composite due to the orientation of the weave

D C Wood,G J Appleby-Thomas,A Hughes,A Hameed,N R Barnes,P J Hazell

doi:10.1007/s10853-018-2431-0

Abstract

Three different orientations of a tape-wrapped carbon fibre composite with phenolic resin matrix (abbreviated to TWCP) have been investigated under one-dimensional shock loading. This has been achieved via a single-stage gas gun, with manganin gauges as the diagnostic tool. The orientations of TWCP studied in this paper were 25°, 45° and 90°, with respect to the impact face. The shock response of these orientations, for this material, has been obtained (the Hugoniot equation of state). These results have been contrasted with previously reported literature data for the same material at different orientations (0° and 20°). It was found that orientation had minimal effect on the behaviour of this composite under shock. The exception to this was the 90° orientation which exhibited an elastic precursor at particle velocities of less than 0.65 mm µs−1; where the shock velocity was equivalent to the elastic sound speed of the material.

Highlights

Composites have a high strength to weight ratio making them ideal candidates for multiple applications in a wide range of industries, for example the aerospace industry [1,2,3]
The shock response of three different orientations of a tape-wrapped carbon fibre composite with phenolic resin matrix has been investigated. This has been achieved by using the plate impact technique via a single-stage gas gun, with manganin pressure gauges as a diagnostic technique
The orientations of the fibre weave studied here were 25°, 45° and 90° with respect to the impact face. These data have been contrasted with the previously obtained data for other TWCP orientations by Wood et al [20] and Burrell et al [1], who used a different composition within their TWCP material, as well as fibre weave orientation

Summary

Introduction

Composites have a high strength to weight ratio making them ideal candidates for multiple applications in a wide range of industries, for example the aerospace industry [1,2,3]. As was observed by Millett et al [9] on their carbon fibre composite, the 0° weave orientation behaved monolithically, with the exception of noted oscillations on the plateau of the experimental gauge traces These oscillations were found to be due to the thickness of the fibre weave and the shock interactions between the carbon fibre weave and the matrix material. The volume fraction of the TWCP composite was calculated as previously conducted in the work by Wood et al [20] This technique led to a volume fraction of 54 ± 4% for all the orientations investigated in this study, with the fibre weave being between 300 and 600 lm. With a diagnostic that has higher spatial resolution such as Het-V or VISAR, which monitors over a potentially very small area, issues may arise, as it would be possible to focus on either the fibres/weave or the matrix independently

Results and discussion

ZSample þ ZBacking

Conclusion