Study of Mechanical Behavior of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composites

Abstract

The work presented here in this thesis is based on the research on a special class of composite materials known as Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composites (CFRC). This area of research is relatively new even though CFRCs have a huge scope of being used as material for engineering components due to their unique properties with great advantages over conventional materials. The complex composition of these materials throws many challenges for harnessing their use in common engineering components at the same time this offers abundance of opportunities for the researchers. Methods and procedures for characterizing these materials have not yet been established the relationships between their compositions, mechanical properties and their functional behaviors in engineering component are unknown. newlineThe present research was undertaken on this subject and on the aspects that are very basic in order to successfully use the CFRC in real life engineering components. The mechanical properties like Elastic Modulus, Poisson s Ratio and Shear Modulus of CFRC with different angles of orientation of fibers with respect to the longitudinal direction (i.e. the direction of line of action of the applied load) were chosen for the study. newlineFirst the theoretical approaches for calculation of these properties were investigated. The values of the chosen mechanical properties were calculated based on theoretical formulae. Then computer simulations of actual experimental conditions were developed for virtual analysis of the CFRCs with different fiber orientation was made. The values of selected mechanical properties of these composites were obtained from the results of the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) in virtual studies. newlineIt was found that there is good correlation between the results of theoretical and virtual (simulation) studies. Experimental studies were also made and the results of newlinexxiv newlinethese experiments correlated well with results obtained in theoretical and virtual studies. Thus, providing a good degree of experimental validation of the results of theoretical and virtual studies. newlineFew attempts were made to use CFRC as a replacement for conventional materials. The results of relevant performances parameters in the engineering systems demonstrated that CFRC have good potential for their use in place of conventional engineering materials. The results of the above studies are presented here in this thesis report. The thesis concludes with some recommendations for future research. newline