Investigation analysis and improvement study of fiber reinforced composite laminates made up of woven fabric kevlar glass fiber reinforced epoxy matrix for low velocity impact applications

Abstract

Composites play a vital role in the advancement of high performance materials. Polymer reinforced composites have extensively been used for the past few decades. Synthetic fibers such as glass fiber, Kevlar fiber and carbon fiber were extensively used for the polymer-based composites. Each fiber has its own advantages and disadvantages and hence studies are being conducted to investigate the effects of the hybridisation of fibers to complement the properties of each other. Hybridisation of the reinforcement is generally provided to balance the disadvantage of one type of fiber with the advantage of another type of fiber. Glass fiber is known for its poor performance in low velocity impact behaviour but Kevlar fiber has high impact resistance performance. Kevlar fiber is generally used for applications requiring high impact resistance. But, Kevlar fiber is more expensive than glass fiber. Apart from primary fiber reinforcements, particulate fillers are also added as secondary reinforcement to improve the mechanical moduli, toughness and hardness of the composites. Nano silica and micro rubber are particularly investigated for their role in impact resistance. newlineHence an attempt is made in this work to evaluate the mechanical properties such as tensile, flexural, impact and shear strength, and dynamic mechanical and low velocity impact behaviour of Kevlar/Glass hybrid fiber reinforced epoxy composites. newline