Investigating polyethersulfone interleaved Glass/Carbon hybrid composite under impact and its comparison with GLARE

Fotouhi, Sakineh; Clamp, Joseph; Bolouri, Amir; Pozegic, Thomas R.; Fotouhi, Mohamad

Abstract

A tough polyethersulfone (PES) membrane was utilized as a novel reinforcement to improve impact performance of a carbon/glass hybrid composite. The hybrid composite was made of a glass fibre/epoxy block that was sandwiched between two carbon fibre/epoxy blocks. The PES reinforced hybrid composite was compared with an unmodified hybrid composite and a glass reinforced aluminium (GLARE) laminate. During impact testing, results showed that incorporation of PES led to an increase in toughness with a reduction in damage propagation in the investigated composite panels. Furthermore, the results showed that for low impact energy levels (6?J, 12?J and 18?J), the addition of the PES membrane reduced the area of damage by an average of 67%, compared to the virgin laminate. By increasing the impact energy level (24?J and 32?J), fibre breakage was the dominant failure mode and the PES had a negligible effect on the impact performance. A comparable load bearing performance was observed with the hybrid composites and the GLARE laminate for the low energy levels (6?J, 12?J and 18?J). However, the GLARE laminate had a better performance during high energy impacts (24?J and 32?J), due to the high ductility of the aluminium plates.

Citation

Fotouhi, S., Clamp, J., Bolouri, A., Pozegic, T. R., & Fotouhi, M. (2019). Investigating polyethersulfone interleaved Glass/Carbon hybrid composite under impact and its comparison with GLARE. Composite Structures, 226, 111268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2019.111268

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 26, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jul 27, 2019
• Publication Date: Oct 15, 2019
• Deposit Date: Aug 1, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 28, 2020
• Journal: Composite Structures
• Print ISSN: 0263-8223
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 226
• Pages: 111268
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2019.111268
• Keywords: Interleaving; Glass/Carbon hybrids; Impact; GLARE; PES
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1843696