Effect of cooling rate on the interlaminar fracture toughness of unidirectional Carbon/PPS laminates

Francisco Sacchetti, Wouter J.B. Grouve, Laurent L. Warnet* (Corresponding Author), Irene Fernandez Villegas

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    24 Citations (Scopus)
    104 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    The effect of cooling rate on the interlaminar fracture toughness of Carbon reinforced PPS laminates was investigated experimentally. A typical stamp forming process was utilised in a novel manner to achieve high average cooling rates, of up to 3500 °C/min, while ensuring a good consolidation quality. Differential scanning calorimetry measurements were used to characterise the degree of crystallinity of the samples, while the interlaminar fracture toughness of the laminates was characterised under mode I using the Double Cantilever Beam test. Finally, micrographic analysis of the fracture surfaces was carried out to correlate the degree of crystallinity to the failure modes. A strong correlation between fracture toughness and degree of crystallinity was found. The samples with a low degree of crystallinity showed a high interlaminar fracture toughness and large plastic deformation of the matrix during fracture.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)126-136
    Number of pages11
    JournalEngineering fracture mechanics
    Volume203
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Nov 2018

    Keywords

    • 22/4 OA procedure

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