Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T16:17:26.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Tensile Behavior of High-Strength Carbon Fibers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2016

Tye Langston
Tye Langston*
Affiliation:
Science and Technology Department, Naval Surface Warfare Center, 110 Vernon Avenue, Panama City, FL 32407, USA
*
*Corresponding author. [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Carbon fibers exhibit exceptional properties such as high stiffness and specific strength, making them excellent reinforcements for composite materials. However, it is difficult to directly measure their tensile properties and estimates are often obtained by tensioning fiber bundles or composites. While these macro scale tests are informative for composite design, their results differ from that of direct testing of individual fibers. Furthermore, carbon filament strength also depends on other variables, including the test length, actual fiber diameter, and material flaw distribution. Single fiber tensile testing was performed on high-strength carbon fibers to determine the load and strain at failure. Scanning electron microscopy was also conducted to evaluate the fiber surface morphology and precisely measure each fiber’s diameter. Fiber strength was found to depend on the test gage length and in an effort to better understand the overall expected performance of these fibers at various lengths, statistical weak link scaling was performed. In addition, the true Young’s modulus was also determined by taking the system compliance into account. It was found that all properties (tensile strength, strain to failure, and Young’s modulus) matched very well with the manufacturers’ reported values at 20 mm gage lengths, but deviated significantly at other lengths.

Keywords

carbon fiberweak link scalingtensile strengthYoung’s modulus
Type
Materials Applications
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , August 2016 , pp. 841 - 844
Copyright
© Microscopy Society of America 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Elices, M. & Llorca, J. (2002). Fiber Fracture. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science Ltd.Google Scholar
Fitzer, E. & Heine, M. (1988). Carbon fiber manufacture and surface treatment. In Fiber Reinforcements for Composite Materials, Bunsell A.R. (Ed.), p. 73. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Flinn, R.A. & Trojan, P.K. (1975). Engineering Materials and Their Applications . Atlanta, GA: Houghton Mifflin Company.Google Scholar
Griffith, A.A. (1921). The phenomenon of rupture and flow in solids. Philos Transact A Math Phys Eng Sci 221, 163–198.Google Scholar
Kim, J. & Mai, Y. (1998). Engineered Interfaces in Fiber Reinforced Composites, 1st ed. Kidlington, Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd.Google Scholar
Lachman, W.L., Crawford, J.A. & McAllister, L.E. (1976). Multidirectionally reinforced carbon-carbon composites. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Composite Materials , vol. I, Norton, B., Signorelli, R., Street, K. & Phillips, L. (Eds.), p. 307. New York: Metallurgical Society of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers.Google Scholar
Lee, S.M. (1993). Handbook of Composite Reinforcements. Palo Alto, CA: VCH Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Masson, J.J. & Bourgain, E. (1992). Some guidelines for consistent use of the Weibull statistics with ceramic fibres. Int J Fract 55, 303–319.Google Scholar
Oberlin, A. & Guigon, M. (1988). The structure of carbon fibers. In Fiber Reinforcements for Composite Materials, Bunsell A.R. (Ed.), pp. 149–210. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Parra-Venegas, E.J., Rodriguez-Miranda, A., Campos-Venegas, K., Martinez-Sanchez, R. & Herrera-Ramirez, J.M. (2012). The tensile behavior of E-glass fibers. Microsc Microanal 18(Suppl 2), 784–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, K.L. & Murray, T.L. (1999). Weak link scaling analysis of high-strength carbon fibre. Composites 30, 1017–1021.Google Scholar