Carbon fibre reinforced plastics CFRP

Airbus A380 structure uses 25 % of advanced composites. Carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) are used for about 22% of the airframe. 

Most carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) used and investigated to date are produced from preimpregnated continuous carbon fibre prepregs. Polymers reinforced with aligned short carbon fibres have certain advantages as materials for structural components, because they can easily be formed into complicated shapes with satisfactory mechanical properties. Woven fabrics produced from carbon fibres find increasing application in the aerospace and many other industries, because they are easy to handle, they have the ability to conform to complicated shapes and the in-plane properties are more isotropic than those of equivalent unidirectional materials. 

Chen WC, Some experimental investigations in the drilling of carbon fibre reinforced plastic (cfrp) composite laminates, Int J Machine Tools Mamif, 37(8), 1097-1108, 1997. 

Maissen A, CAM deSmet, Prestressed eoncrete using carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) strands. Materials and Structures, 31(207), 175 177, 1998. 

Figure 6.10c SEM photographs of the fracture surfaces of epoxy/HBP blend (15 wt% HBP) in carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) form. Reprinted with permission from D. Ratna, Composites A, 2008, 39, 462. 2008, Elsevier...

Calendering (rubber sheeting), 241 Carbon fibre reinforced plastics, CFRP, 38 Ciba-Geigy Ltd, 211... 

Finally, it is noteworthy that if water (or indeed other highly polar liquids) is the environment of interest, then metallic and ceramic substrates are those which result in joints most likely to exhibit poor durability. This is a consequence, of course, of the relatively polar nature of their surfaces and their high surface free energies. Thus, ingressing water molecules are preferentially attracted to the surfaces of these substrates and will displace the physisorbed molecules of the adhesive. These comments are also reflected [5,6] in the values of Wa and Wai for joints based upon carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) substrates typically being of the order of 90 mJ/m and 30 mJ/m, respectively. The positive values of both of these terms indicate that the durability of adhesively bonded CFRP joints should not represent a major problem. This is indeed found to be the case, from the aspect of the stability of the interface. (Although problems may arise if (a) the... 

Figure 1.17 Another major use of structural adhesives in the aerospace industry is in making honeycomb sandwich panels where the face skins are bonded to the honeycomb core. This example is from a section of the rudder of Concorde and consists of aluminium alloy core and skins. More recently one has seen the increased use of non-metallic core and skin materials, i.e. carbon-fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) skins. 

The laminate composites of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) and Carbon Fiber Reinforced Carbon (CFRC) show a very high strength and a ductile behaviour compared to brittle materials and have a low density. CFRC composites are especially suitable for high temperature applications. Therefore they are very important to aerospace technology. A single lamina of CFRP or CFRC may be considered to be homogeneous and anisotropic. The composite consists of a stack of such plies. Since each ply may have a different orientation and/or elastic moduli, the composite as a whole must be treated as an inhomogeneous anisotropic material. 

GFRP - Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastic KFRP - Kevlar Fibre Reinforced Plastic CFRP - Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic... 

Current applications of CFRP (Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastics) at Alenia Spazio include optical benches (Figure 6, following page), truss adapters (Figure 7, following page) and spectrometer frames. 

A revolution in material science, as described in popular literature recently (28), was started by this family of carbon fibres. Fig. 15 shows carbon fibre textile as used in prepregs for airplane structures. Such prepregs consist of epoxy prepolymers reinforced by carbon fibres, which are then combined by lay-up technique and subsequent curing to C-fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) the... 

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