TY - JOUR
T1 - The effect of thermally desized carbon fibre reinforcement on the flexural and impact properties of PA6, PPS and PEEK composite laminates
T2 - A comparative study
AU - Kiss, Peter
AU - Glinz, Jonathan
AU - Stadlbauer, Wolfgang
AU - Burgstaller, Christoph
AU - Archodoulaki, Vasiliki Maria
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors
PY - 2021/6/15
Y1 - 2021/6/15
N2 - Commercial carbon fibre (CF) fabrics are frequently equipped with an epoxy-based (EP) sizing, which is required for fibre protection during weaving but unsuitable for subsequent thermoplastic processing due to incompatibility. The present study investigates a heat treatment method of CF fabrics in order to remove the incompatible sizing and promote interfacial adhesion with thermoplastic matrices through the oxidised carbon surface. The removal of the EP-sizing from CF fabrics (desizing) was conducted by infrared-irradiation (IR) in air atmosphere at 400 °C. IR-desized CF fabrics were confirmed to be free from sizing residues by SEM imaging and thermogravimetric analysis. Subsequently, CF-PA6, CF-PPS and CF-PEEK thermoplastic composite laminates (TPCL) were manufactured by means of film stacking and hot compression moulding with fibre volume fractions ranging from 45-47%. For comparative purposes, the in-house moulded TPCL were benchmarked against state-of-the-art industrial TPCL in 3-point flexural, short-beam flexural and Charpy impact tests. Overall, very similar performance was attained between IR-desized TPCL and their industrial counterparts. Excellent wet-out and interfacial adhesion of IR-desized CF was observed from SEM imaging of fractured laminates. Conversely, TPCL prepared from EP-sized CF fabrics were found to be neither sufficiently consolidated nor thoroughly wetted out by the thermoplastic matrix, confirming poor interfacial compatibility. The correspondingly poor mechanical performance of EP-sized TPCL emphasised the importance of EP-sizing removal.
AB - Commercial carbon fibre (CF) fabrics are frequently equipped with an epoxy-based (EP) sizing, which is required for fibre protection during weaving but unsuitable for subsequent thermoplastic processing due to incompatibility. The present study investigates a heat treatment method of CF fabrics in order to remove the incompatible sizing and promote interfacial adhesion with thermoplastic matrices through the oxidised carbon surface. The removal of the EP-sizing from CF fabrics (desizing) was conducted by infrared-irradiation (IR) in air atmosphere at 400 °C. IR-desized CF fabrics were confirmed to be free from sizing residues by SEM imaging and thermogravimetric analysis. Subsequently, CF-PA6, CF-PPS and CF-PEEK thermoplastic composite laminates (TPCL) were manufactured by means of film stacking and hot compression moulding with fibre volume fractions ranging from 45-47%. For comparative purposes, the in-house moulded TPCL were benchmarked against state-of-the-art industrial TPCL in 3-point flexural, short-beam flexural and Charpy impact tests. Overall, very similar performance was attained between IR-desized TPCL and their industrial counterparts. Excellent wet-out and interfacial adhesion of IR-desized CF was observed from SEM imaging of fractured laminates. Conversely, TPCL prepared from EP-sized CF fabrics were found to be neither sufficiently consolidated nor thoroughly wetted out by the thermoplastic matrix, confirming poor interfacial compatibility. The correspondingly poor mechanical performance of EP-sized TPCL emphasised the importance of EP-sizing removal.
KW - Adhesion
KW - Carbon fibres
KW - Mechanical testing
KW - Thermoplastic resin
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103695414&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.compositesb.2021.108844
DO - 10.1016/j.compositesb.2021.108844
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85103695414
SN - 1359-8368
VL - 215
JO - Composites Part B: Engineering
JF - Composites Part B: Engineering
M1 - 108844
ER -