Elastic Constants of Particle and Fiber Reinforced Metal Matrix Composites

Abstract

A model has been developed to predict the elastic moduli in composites reinforced with both particles and fibers. In the model the matrix material and the particles, which are assumed to be homogeneously distributed, form an effective matrix. The characteristics of this effective matrix is calculated using a theory formulated by Ledbetter and Datta. The effective matrix is then considered to be reinforced with fibers lying in one plane but randomly oriented in that plane. The effect of the 2-dimensionally random orientation of the fibers on the elastic moduli of the composites is determined in two steps. First the composite cylinders model by Hashin and Rosen for an aligned fiber system is employed, and then a geometric averaging procedure suggested by Christensen and Waals is performed. Using this model, the Young's and shear moduli were calculated for three samples with different aluminum matrices and volume fractions of particles (9, 13, and 17%) but the same fiber content (6%). The same elastic moduli were also determined using ultrasonic velocity measurements. The agreement between calculated and measured elastic moduli is found to be very good. Also, the elastic anisotropics between directions of the fiber rich plane and that normal to the plane could be predicted by the model.     

Improved mechanical properties of PMMA composites: Dispersion,diffusion and surface adhesion of recycled carbon fiber fillers from CFRP with adsorbed particulate PMMA

In this study, composite materials were fabricated using the thermoplastic resin poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and recycled carbon fibers obtained by pulverizing carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP). PMMA particles were adsorbed on the carbon fiber surfaces via electrostatic interactions, to promote the interfacial adhesion between the carbon fibers and the PMMA resin and thereby improve the dispersion of the fibers in the resin. This enhanced the mechanical properties of the composites; the yield stress and elastic modulus of the composite. As a result, the yield stress and elastic modulus of the composite improved owing to the prevention of void formation in the composite resulting from the chemical incompatibility between the filler and the resin and better dispersion of the PMMA-adsorbed carbon fibers in the resin compared to that in the unmodified fibers. This method can be applied to fabricate high-quality composites consisting of a combination of other resins and fillers.     

碳纤维在电子束辐射过程中对树脂基复合材料界面性能的影响

采用XPS和Raman分析了电子束辐射对碳纤维表面性质的影响，研究了碳纤维与基体树脂之间的不充分接触对电子束固化复合材料层间剪切强度的影响，同时分析了碳纤维表面吸附的水分，碳纤维与基体树脂之间的空隙率和碳纤维表面在碳酸氢铵电解液中进行阳极氧化处理后对电子束固化复合材料界面性能的影响，分析了碳纤维表面在电子束辐射过程中与树脂基体的作用机理。     

Elastic and anelastic properties of C/Mg–2wt.%Si composite during thermal cycling

Ultrasonic technique is employed to detect microstructural changes induced in a carbon fiber–magnesium matrix composite (Mg–2wt.%Si alloy matrix reinforced by long unidirectional carbon fibers with volume fraction of about 30%) during thermal cycling in the range of 100–360 K through measurements of its elastic and anelastic properties. Variations of the elastic modulus of the composite during thermal cycling is largely determined by elasticity of the carbon fibers stressed by the thermally expanded/contracted matrix. Anelastic properties of the composite are caused by dislocation motion in the matrix.     

Modeling the effective elastic properties of nanocomposites with circular straight CNT fibers reinforced in the epoxy matrix

In the present study, the consistent effective elastic properties of straight, circular carbon nanotube epoxy composites are derived using the micromechanics theory. The CNT composites are known to provide high stiffness and elastic properties when the shape of the fibers is cylindrical and straight. Accordingly, in the present work, the effective elastic moduli of composite are newly obtained for straight, circular CNTs aligned in the specified direction as well as distributed randomly in the matrix. In this direction, novel analytical expressions are proposed for four cases of fiber property. First, aligned, and straight CNTs are considered with transverse isotropy in fiber coordinates, and the composite properties are also transversely isotropic in global coordinates. The short comings in the earlier developments are effectively addressed by deriving the consistent form of the strain tensor and the stiffness tensor of the CNT nanocomposite. Subsequently, effective relations for composites reinforced with aligned, straight CNTs but fibers isotropic in local coordinates are newly developed under hydrostatic loading. The effect of the unsymmetric Eshelby tensor for cylindrical fibers on the overall properties of the nanocomposite is included by deriving the strain concentration tensors. Next, the random distribution of CNT fibers in the matrix is studied with fibers being transversely isotropic as well as isotropic when CNT nanocomposites are subjected to uniform loading. The corresponding relations for the effective elastic properties are newly derived. The modeling technique is validated with results reported, and the variations in the effective properties for different CNT volume fractions are presented.     

Elastic response of a carbon nanotube fiber reinforced polymeric composite: A numerical and experimental study

Premature failure due to low mechanical properties in the transverse direction to the fiber constitutes a fundamental weakness of fiber reinforced polymeric composites. A solution to this problem is being addressed through the creation of nanoreinforced laminated composites where carbon nanotubes are grown on the surface of fiber filaments to improve the matrix-dominated composite properties. The carbon nanotubes increase the effective diameter of the fiber and provide a larger interface area for the polymeric matrix to wet the fiber. A study was conducted to numerically predict the elastic properties of the nanoreinforced composites. A multiscale modeling approach and the Finite Element Method were used to evaluate the effective mechanical properties of the nanoreinforced laminated composite. The cohesive zone approach was used to model the interface between the nanotubes and the polymer matrix. The elastic properties of the nanoreinforced laminated composites including the elastic moduli, the shear modulus, and the Poisson’s ratios were predicted and correlated with iso-strain and iso-stress models. An experimental program was also conducted to determine the elastic moduli of the nanoreinforced laminated composite and correlate them with the numerical values.     

Investigation of structure,mechanical and tribological properties of short carbon fiber reinforced UHMWPE-matrix composites

Structural, mechanical and tribological properties of composite materials based on ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene reinforced with carbon fibers were investigated. The effect of surface modification of carbon fibers on the interaction at the fiber–matrix interface in UHMWPE based composites was studied. It was found that the thermal oxidation of carbon fibers by air oxygen at 500 °C can significantly enhance the interfacial interaction between the polymer matrix and carbon fibers. This allowed us to form composite materials with improved mechanical and tribological properties.     

Flutter of delaminated three-phase nano-composite beam-plates

ABSTRACT

In this article the supersonic flutter instability of delaminated carbon nanotube reinforced three-phase composite plate is investigated. The classical laminate plate theory and piston aerodynamic theory are developed to construct the governing equation of delaminated three-phase nano-composite plates. The effective material properties are obtained using Halpin-Tsai relation and rule of mixture. The effects of different parameters including carbon nanotubes (CNTs) weight percentage, fiber volume fraction, CNTs aspect ratio and different fiber orientation on flutter pressure of delaminated reinforced composite plates are considered. According to the results, appending small amount of CNTs (4% wt) into the matrix epoxy can improve the flutter critical pressure by 33% in comparison to the neat matrix epoxy.     

A shear lag model of Piezoelectric composite reinforced with carbon nanotubes-coated Piezoelectric fibers

A novel hybrid piezoelectric composite in which the microscopic piezoelectric fiber reinforcements are coated with radially aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is analyzed in this study. A shear-lag model is developed to analyze the load transferred to such coated fibers from the aligned-CNT reinforced matrix in a hybrid composite application in the absence and the presence of the electric field along the length of the fiber. It is found that if the aligned CNTs are radially grown on the surface of the piezoelectric fiber then the axial load transferred to the fiber is reduced in the absence of the electric field while the axial stress in the fiber increases in the presence of the electric filed only. The radial stress in the active piezoelectric fiber significantly increases due to the radial growth of aligned CNTs on the surface of the fibers. This indicates a probable critical window for engineering the surface of the piezoelectric fiber for improving the effective piezoelectric properties. Effects of the variation of the aspect ratio of the piezoelectric fiber and the CNT volume fraction on the load transferred to such CNT-coated piezoelectric fibers are also investigated.     

Effective properties of three-phase electro-magneto-elastic composites

Coupling between the electric field, magnetic field, and strain of composite materials is achieved when electro-elastic (piezoelectric) and magneto-elastic (piezomagnetic) particles are joined by an elastic matrix. Although the matrix is neither piezoelectric nor piezomagnetic, the strain field in the matrix couples the electric field of the piezoelectric phase to the magnetic field of the piezomagnetic phase. This three-phase electro-magneto-elastic composite should have greater ductility and formability than a two-phase composite in which the electric field and the magnetic field are coupled by directly bonding two brittle materials. A finite element analysis (FEA) and micromechanics based averaging of a representative volume element (RVE) are performed in this work to determine the effective dielectric, magnetic, mechanical, and coupled-field properties of an elastic matrix reinforced with piezoelectric and piezomagnetic fibers as functions of the phase volume fractions, the fiber arrangements in the RVE, and the fiber material properties with special emphasis on the poling directions of the piezoelectric and piezomagnetic fibers. The effective magneto-electric moduli of this three-phase composite are found to be less than the effective magneto-electric moduli of a two-phase piezoelectric/piezomagnetic composite, because the elastic matrix is not stiff enough to transfer significant strains between the piezomagnetic and piezoelectric fibers.     

Surface Wave Utility in Composite Material Characterization

Abstract

A surface wave velocity measurement technique is used to supply supporting measurements in the computation of elastic constants for practical nondestructive evaluation of composite materials. Theoretical modeling work is carried out to illustrate the surface wave velocity changes as a function of angle with respect to the axes along the fibers of a unidirectional graphite epoxy composite material for a variety of different problems, including porosity (PC) changes, fiber volume fraction (FF) changes, and delamination. Experiments are conducted on two unidirectional reinforced composites and a (0–90)_s cross ply graphite epoxy laminate to illustrate the surface wave velocity measurements and the inverse computation procedure for evaluation of the stiffness coefficients. Variations of the feature values in the stiffness matrix are also discussed for inhomogeneities, delaminations through cracking, and large defects.     

Ultra‐thin carbon/silicon carbide composite bipolar plate for advanced fuel cells

The first cut results on the development of ultra‐thin, low gas permeable, easily machineable, high electrical conductivity and high mechanical strength bipolar plate made up of carbon reinforced ceramic matrix are reported for the strategic application. Short carbon fiber reinforced silicon carbide matrix composite is fabricated by chopping continuous carbon fibers into discrete length, exfoliating and dispersing the exfoliated carbon fibers in silicon carbide powder and finally hot‐pressing to make the composite. Three compacts containing exfoliated carbon fiber contents of 20, 30, 50 vol. % in silicon carbide matrix are prepared and characterized for electrical, thermal, gas permeability, density, and mechanical properties. The composite plates with exfoliated carbon fiber vol. % of 50, offer excellent electrical conductivity, flexural and compressive strengths and gas permeability of 2.2 × 10^‐7 cm^‐3 cm^‐2 s^‐1. Carbon/silicon carbide plate shows 37.5 % and 4.7 % lower volume and weight, respectively on comparing with the best reported data of carbon/polymer composite plate. Competency of the material for bipolar plate fabrication is tested and found that the ceramic carbon composite may open up the new horizon for the fabrication of ultra‐thin bipolar plates for strategic applications.     

Predictions of elastic property on 2.5D C/SiC composites based on numerical modeling and semi-analytical method

In this paper, the predictions of elastic constants of 2.5D (three-dimension angle-interlock woven) continue carbon fiber reinforced silicon carbide (C/SiC) composites are studied by means of theoretical model and numerical simulation. A semi-analytical method expressing elastic constants in terms of microstructure geometrical parameters and constitute properties has been proposed. First, both the geometrical model of the 2.5D composite and the representative volume element (RVE) in both micro- and meso-scale are proposed. Second, the effective elastic properties of the RVE in 2.5D C/SiC composites are obtained using finite element method (FEM) simulation based on energy equivalent principle. Finally, the remedied spatial stiffness average (RSSA) method is proposed to obtain more accurate elastic constants using nine correction factor functions determined by FEM simulations, also the effects of geometrical variables on mechanical properties in 2.5D C/SiC composites are analyzed. These results will play an important role in designing advanced C/SiC composites.     

Asymmetric hybrid composite: A design concept to improve flexural properties of Kevlar Aramid composites

Asymmetric hybridization is proposed as a mechnanism for improvement of flexural properties of composites reinforced with Kevlar¹ aramid fiber, where the compressive strength of the fiber is a limiting factor. A calculation based on a bi-material beam model is presented, which determines the placement and arrangement of fibers in a composite such that the stress developed on the tensile side of the composite equals the ultimate tensile strength of Kevlar. An experimental investigation was conducted with asymmetric hybrid composites of J-polymer reinforced with Kevlar and carbon fibers. In the best cases, the observed ultimate flexural and shear strengths were improved by 40% and 25% by comparison with values typically seen for composites of J-polymer and Kevlar.     

不同处理方法对碳纤维表面形态及Cf/C复合材料强度的影响

采用浓硝酸和电化学两种不同的表面处理技术,对碳纤维表面处理,利用SEM对纤维表面进行了分析,并对其所制备的Cf/C复合材料抗弯性能进行了测试.结果表明:采用低电压,短时间处理,对碳纤维表面作用较温和,粗糙度和比表面积增加,对复合材料的增强效果较浓硝酸氧化处理的显著.经10V,10min处理后,纤维表面出现"松树皮"状凸起,复合材料力学性能下降.电化学处理碳纤维以提高复合材料界面性能的机理至少包括薄弱外层的去除和对纤维表面的刻蚀两种作用,在混合作用中,对纤维表面刻蚀作用占据主导地位.     

国产ZT7H碳纤维表面状态及其复合材料界面性能

目前我国在高性能碳纤维研发生产方面已取得了突破性的进展。本文选用不同批次和牌号的国产ZT7H碳纤维,对其进行去浆和上浆处理,并制备碳纤维增强环氧树脂基复合材料,探究国产H1型上浆剂对ZT7H碳纤维表面形貌和微观界面性能的影响及不同牌号碳纤维复合材料界面性能的差异。研究表明,H1上浆剂增加了碳纤维表面粗糙度和极性组分含量,增强了湿热老化前后复合材料的微观界面力学性能。同时,碳纤维织物的编织方式对其复合材料的静态力学性能和界面性能有很大影响。实验证明,国产ZT7H碳纤维的性能已超过东丽T700碳纤维,但其加工工艺性仍有待提升。      

Interlaminar shear strength of SiC matrix composites reinforced by continuous fibers at 900 °C in air

To reveal the shear properties of SiC matrix composites, interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) of three kinds of silicon carbide matrix composites was investigated by compression of the double notched shear specimen (DNS) at 900 °C in air. The investigated composites included a woven plain carbon fiber reinforced silicon carbide composite (2D-C/SiC), a two-and-a-half-dimensional carbon fiber-reinforced silicon carbide composite (2.5D-C/SiC) and a woven plain silicon carbon fiber reinforced silicon carbide composite (2D-SiC/SiC). A scanning electron microscope was employed to observe the microstructure and fracture morphologies. It can be found that the fiber type and reinforcement architecture have significant impacts on the ILSS of the SiC matrix composites. Great anisotropy of ILSS can be found for 2.5D-C/SiC because of the different fracture resistance of the warp fibers. Larger ILSS can be obtained when the specimens was loaded along the weft direction. In addition, the SiC fibers could enhance the ILSS, compared with carbon fibers. The improvement is attributed to the higher oxidation resistance of SiC fibers and the similar thermal expansion coefficients between the matrix and the fibers.     

电子束固化复合材料界面

电子束固化复合材料界面粘结性能较低是急待解决的问题。利用阳极氧化技术和偶联剂涂层对碳纤维表面进行处理。处理前后的碳纤维表面性能利用SEM、XPS和接触角测试方法进行分析,通过层间剪切强度表征电子束固化复合材料界面粘结性能,并且与热固化复合材料进行对比。结果表明: 当碳纤维在酸性电解液中进行阳极氧化时,有利于提高电子束固化复合材料界面粘合性能,在碱性电解液中进行阳极氧化时, 则导致较低界面粘接性能。阳极氧化与偶联剂双重增效作用能够提高电子束固化复合材料界面粘合性能。     

Effective mechanical properties of “fuzzy fiber” composites

In this paper we investigate the mechanical behavior of carbon fiber composites, where the carbon fibers are coated with radially aligned carbon nanotubes. For this purpose we develop a general micromechanics method for fiber composites, where fibers are coated with radially aligned microfibers (“fuzzy fiber” composites). The mechanical effective properties are computed with a special extension of the composite cylinders method. The in-plane shear modulus is determined using an extended version of the Christensen’s generalized self consistent composite cylinders method. The proposed methodology provides stress and strain concentration tensors. The results of the method are compared with numerical approaches based on the asymptotic expansion homogenization method. The combination of composite cylinders method and Mori–Tanaka method allows us to compute effective properties of composites with multiple types of “fuzzy fibers”. Numerical examples of composites made of epoxy resin, carbon fibers and carbon nanotubes are presented and the impact of the carbon nanotubes length and volume fraction in the overall composite properties is studied.     

聚合物涂层对高模量碳纤维表面性能的影响

为改善碳纤维表面性能以及碳纤维/树脂复合材料的界面性能,对PAN基高模量碳纤维（HMCF）表面进行聚合物涂层处理。研究了不同潜伏性固化剂含量的聚合物涂层对HMCF表面以及碳纤维/树脂复合材料的界面性能的影响。IR分析表明,聚合物涂层与纤维或树脂基体发生了化学反应。扫描电镜和动态机械热分析的结果也说明,聚合物涂层能够提高...