Carbon fiber polymer composites: a preliminary study on their morphological and mechanical properties.

Abstract

With the increasing demand for air travel and population growth, aircraft efficiency is a top priority to decrease costs and environmental damage. The use of composite materials for modern aircraft construction has been growing rapidly in recent years. The area of opportunity to improve these materials and create more knowledge to get all the benefits they can provide is huge. In this work, further development of a previously proposed material is done. Different variants of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composites (CFRP) composites are proposed and characterized in order to improve their mechanical properties. The polymer used in this work, a commercially available epoxy resin, is analyzed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to find adequate processing parameters for a faster curing process than that suggested by the resin provider. The composite's tensile properties are improved compared to previous studies performed in the research group, but the CF fabric architecture seems to not affect the properties. Impregnation of the fibers is improved with different CF fabric architectures, and the resulting composite is more resistant in tensile tests than some conventional metallic aerospace components. Further investigation is needed to get insights into the polymer's compatibility with the CF. Further testing of the material and other variants is important to understand which parameters work best for the intended applications.