Ultra-thin electrospun nanofibers for development of damage-tolerant composite laminates (original) (raw)
2019, Materials Today Chemistry
The present article overcomes existing challenges ahead of inter-laminar toughening of novel multifunctional fibre-reinforced polymer composites via development and embedment of highly stretched, ultra-thin electrospun thermoplastic nanofibers made of polyamide 6.6. The nanofibers have exhibited significant enhancement of the composite laminate's structural integrity with almost zero weight penalty via ensuring a smooth stress transfer throughout the plies and serving tailoring mechanical properties in desired directions, with no interference with geometric features e.g. thickness. The findings for 1.5 grams per square meter (gsm) electrospun nanofibers have demonstrated, on test coupons specimens, improvements up to 85% and 43% in peak load and crack opening displacement, respectively, with significant improvement (> 25%) and no sacrifice of fracture toughness at both initiation and propagation phases. The initial stiffness for the modified specimens was improved by nearly 150%. The enhancement is mainly due to nano-fibres contributing to the stiffness of the resin rich area at the crack tip adjacent to the Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) film. Glass fibre-reinforced woven phenolic preimpregnated composite plies have been modified with the nano-fibres (each layer having an average thickness of <1 micron) at 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 4.0 gsm, electrospun at room temperature on each ply, and manufactured via autoclave vacuum bagging process. Inter-laminar fracture toughness specimens were manufactured for Mode I (double cantilever beam, DCB) fracture tests. It was found that there is threshold for electrospun nanofibers density, at which an optimum performance is reached in modified composite Manuscript File
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