Composite materials fiber-reinforced composites

Compared to bulk materials, fiber-reinforced composites have already proven to exhibit superior properties in numerous applications. However, various desired combinations of properties, e.g., strong reinforcing effects at high optical transparency combined with electrical conductivity or reinforced micro-injection molded parts, cannot be achieved by traditional composites. The further improvement of the fracture toughness of resin matrices is another important task. Nanocomposites possess the potential to fill this existing gap. 

A.K Jain M P Debuisson. Segmentation of X-ray and C-scan Images of Fiber Reinforced Composite Materials. Pattern Recognition, vol 25, N°.3, pp 257-270, 1992... 

Advanced composites and fiber-reinforced materials are used in sailcloth, speedboat, and other types of boat components, and leisure and commercial fishing gear. A ram id and polyethylene fibers are currentiy used in conveyer belts to collect valuable offshore minerals such as cobalt, uranium, and manganese. Constmction of oil-adsorbing fences made of high performance fabrics is being evaluated in Japan as well as the constmction of other pollution control textile materials for maritime use. For most marine uses, the textile materials must be resistant to biodeterioration and to a variety of aqueous pollutants and environmental conditions. 

Laminates ate a special form of composite material or reinforced plastic because the continuous reinforcing ply of fibrous material imparts significant strength in the x—j plane. The strength along the axis results from interlaminar bonding of resins. Very few fibers ate oriented in the direction, so it tends to be the weak link in this type of composite. 

Eiber volume fraction is a quantitative measure of degree of reinforcement of the matrix material in a fiber-reinforced composite. If the volume of a composite material is D and the volume of the fibers is and that of the matrix is then... 

Thermosetting unsaturated polyester resins constitute the most common fiber-reinforced composite matrix today. According to the Committee on Resin Statistics of the Society of Plastics Industry (SPl), 454,000 t of unsaturated polyester were used in fiber-reinforced plastics in 1990. These materials are popular because of thek low price, ease of use, and excellent mechanical and chemical resistance properties. Over 227 t of phenoHc resins were used in fiber-reinforced plastics in 1990 (1 3). PhenoHc resins (qv) are used when thek inherent flame retardance, high temperature resistance, or low cost overcome the problems of processing difficulties and lower mechanical properties. 

Also, laminated fiber-reinforced composite materials are obviously both laminated and fibrous composite materials. Thus, any classification system is arbitrary and imperfect. Nevertheless, the system should serve to acquaint the reader with the broad possibilities of composite materials. 

For the remainder of this book, fiber-reinforced composite laminates will be emphasized. The fibers are long and continuous as opposed to whiskers. The concepts developed herein are applicable mainly to fiber-reinforced composite laminates, but are also valid for other laminates and whisker composites with some fairly obvious modifications. That is, fiber-reinforced composite laminates are used as a uniform example throughout this book, but concepts used to analyze their behavior are often applicable to other forms of composite materials. In many Instances, the applicability will be made clear as an example complementary to the principal example of fiber-reinforced composite laminates. 

The basic terminology of fiber-reinforced composite laminates will be introduced in the following paragraphs. For a lamina, the configurations and functions of the constituent materials, fibers and matrix, will be described. The characteristics of the fibers and matrix are then discussed. Finally, a laminate is defined to round out this introduction to the characteristics of fiber-reinforced composite laminates. 

Fiber-reinforced composite materials such as boron-epoxy and graphite-epoxy are usually treated as linear elastic materials because the essentially linear elastic fibers provide the majority of the strength and stiffness. Refinement of that approximation requires consideration of some form of plasticity, viscoelasticity, or both (viscoplasticity). Very little work has been done to implement those models or idealizations of composite material behavior in structural applications. 

Three principal layup processes for laminated fiber-reinforced composite materials are winding, laying, and molding. The choice of a layup process (as well as a curing process) depends on many factors part size and shape, cost, schedule, familiarity with particular techniques, etc. 

The advent of advanced fiber-reinforced composite materials has been called the biggest technical revolution since the jet engine [1-4], This claim is very striking because the tremendous impact of the jet engine on military aircraft performance is readily apparent. The impact on commercial aviation is even more striking because the airlines stwitched from propeller-driven planes to all-jet fleets within the span of just a few years because of superior performance and lower maintenance costs. 

Not all of the strength and stiffness advantages of fiber-reinforced composite materials can be transformed directly into structural advantages. Prominent among the reasons for this statement is the fact that the joints for members made of composite materials are typically more bulky than those for metal parts. These relative inefficiencies are being studied because they obviously affect the cost trade-offs for application of composite materials. Other limitations will be discussed subsequently. 

Robert M. Jones ar Harold S. Morgan, Analysis of Nonlinear Stress-Strain Behavior of Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials, AIAA Journal, December 1977, pp. 1669-1676. 

An additionai and compiementary objective of micromechanics approaches to composite materiais anaiysis is to determine the strengths of the composite materiai in terms of the strengths of the constituent materiais. For exampie, the strength of a fiber-reinforced composite materiai must be determined in terms of the strengths of the fibers and the matrix and their relative voiumes (reiative to the totai voiume of the composite material). In functional form. 

The nonlinear shear stress-shear strain behavior typical of fiber-reinforced composite materials is ignored, i.e., the behavior is regarded as linear. 

For fiber-reinforced composite materials, Tsai gives expressions for E, E2, v 2> 12 9 ° agreement with experimental data... 

Prediction of the strength of fiber-reinforced composite materials has not achieved the near-esoteric levels of the stiffness predictions studied in the preceding sections. Nevertheless, there are many interesting physical models for the strength characteristics of a matrix reinforced by fibers. Most of the models represent a very high degree of integration of physical observation with the mechanical description of a phenomenon. 

A unidirectional fiber-reinforced composite material deforms as the load increases in the following four stages, more or less, depending on the relative brittleness or ductility of the fibers and the matrix ... 

Figure 3-46 Deformation Stages of a Fiber-Reinforced Composite Material...

The difference between Equations (3.119) and (3.124) is slight for high ratios of E, to E , as in practical fiber-reinforced composite materials. 

Figure 3-62 Compressive Strain at Microbuckling for Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials (After Dow and Rosen [3-28])...

The strength of special classes of laminated fiber-reinforced composite materials has been analyzed on the basis of several hypotheses ... 

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