Due to superior specific properties over traditional materials, the use of textile composites for aerospace, automotive, and marine applications has increased dramatically. The next generation of reinforcements, namely NCF, is being explored for various structural applications. NCF provides excellent laminate strength, and the cost of fabrication is substantially lower than traditional composite manufacturing. Composite laminates are bonded together by a thin layer of resin between them, and the interface layer transfers the displacement and force from one layer to another layer. When these layers damage or weaken, adjacent layers separate, which forms the crack between adjacent plies. This also reduces the strength and stiffness of laminate which is a big factor in the lifetime of a composite structure. Eventually, this separation of layers causes stress concentration in the plies, which leads to the growth of delamination and results in failure of the laminate. Different micro/nanofiller, such as nanoparticles and nanofibers incorporated within the matrix material of composites, have offered new avenues for improving the multifunctional properties of polymer matrix composites due to their superior properties and high aspect ratio.This paper presents the challenges in the fabrication of graphene sheet reinforced non-crimp fabric (NCF) composite laminates and their effect on the interlaminar strength of the composite laminates. In the present work, the laminates were manufactured using non-crimp carbon fabric prepreg in conjunction with 60,120 and 240 µm thick graphene sheets at the midplane. Graphene sheets were purchased from XG Sciences, MI USA. Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) tests are done as per ASTM 5528 using INSTRON electromechanical testing system. Modified Beam Theory method is used to calculate Mode I fracture toughness, using a load, displacement, specimen dimension, and crack length.As the graphene sheets are brittle in nature, during the fabrication process, it was observed that there was very little or no bonding between the graphene sheet and adjoining c-ply prepregs. This resulted in a very weak interface. To overcome this problem, graphene sheets were converted into lattice structures. The lattice structure used in the present research had a square grid with openings of various. &nbsp;Effects of sheet thickness, grid size were evaluated by mode I fracture toughness, with and without nanoengineered enhanced laminates. Axio Image upright microscopes and scanning electron microscopes were used to compare failure patterns.&nbsp;The preliminary results clearly indicate that the composite laminates fabricated using lattice graphene structure had better interlaminar strength as compared to the laminates fabricated with straight graphene sheets.

Fabrication, Processing and Characterization of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Laminated Composite Embedded With Graphene Lattice Sheets

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2021/volume/85543

ASME 2021 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE2021)

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