In this study, carbon fiber-epoxy composites are interleaved with electrospun polyamide-6,6 (PA 66) nanofibers to improve their Mode-I fracture toughness. These nanofibers are directly deposited onto carbon fabrics before composite manufacturing via vacuum infusion. Three-point bending, tensile, compression, interlaminar shear strength, Charpy impact, and double cantilever beam tests are performed on the reference and PA 66 interleaved specimens to evaluate the effects of PA 66 nanofibers on the mechanical properties of composites. To investigate the effect of nanofiber areal weight density (AWD), nanointerlayers with various AWD are prepared by changing the electrospinning duration. It is found that the electrospun PA 66 nanofibers are very effective in improving Mode-I toughness and impact resistance, compressive strength, flexural modulus, and strength of the composites. However, these nanofibers cause a decrease in the tensile strength of the composites. The glass-transition temperature of the composites is not affected by the addition of PA 66 nanofibers.

In this study, carbon fiber/epoxy (CF/EP) composites were interleaved with polyamide-6,6 (PA 66) nonwoven veils at two different areal weight densities (17 and 50 gsm) to improve their delamination resistance against Mode-I loading. Mode-I fracture toughness (DCB), tensile, open hole tensile (OHT), flexural, compression, short beam shear (ILSS) and Charpy-impact tests were performed on the reference and PA 66 interleaved composite specimens. The DCB test results showed that the initiation and propagation Mode-I fracture toughness values of the composites were significantly improved by 84 and 171% using PA 66-17 gsm veils respectively, as compared to reference laminates. The use of denser PA 66-50 gsm veils in the interlaminar region led to higher improvement in fracture toughness values (349% for initiation and 718% for propagation) due to the higher amount of veil fibers involved in fiber bridging toughening mechanism. The incorporation of PA 66-50 gsm nonwoven veils also increased the ILSS and Charpy impact strength of the composites by 25 and 15%, respectively. On the other hand, the PA 66 veils reduced in-plane mechanical properties of CF/EP composites due to lower carbon fiber volume fraction and increased thickness.

In this study, the effects of modifying interlaminar region of unidirectional carbon fibre/epoxy composites by the incorporation of electrospun polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofibres were investigated. PVA nanofibres were directly deposited onto the carbon fabrics by electrospinning method to improve mechanical performance of those composites. The features of the electrospun nanofibres were characterized by microscopy techniques. The unidirectional carbon fibre/epoxy composite laminates with/without PVA nanofibre interlayers were manufactured by vacuum-infusion technique in a [0] 4 configuration. Tensile, three-point bending, compression, Charpy-impact and Mode-I fracture toughness tests (Double Cantilever Beam (DCB)) were carried out in accordance with ASTM standards to evaluate mechanical performance of the composites. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations were made on the specimens to evaluate microstructural features. It was observed that the carbon fabrics were successfully coated with a thin layer of PVA nanofibres by electrospinning technique. The results showed that PVA nanofibres improve the mechanical properties of unidirectional carbon/epoxy composite laminates when subjected to in-plane loading. On the other hand, PVA nanofibres slightly reduced the mode-I fracture toughness values although they led to more stable crack propagation.

Thermoplastic interleaving is a promising technique to improve delamination resistance of laminated composites. In this study, plain-weave carbon fiber/epoxy composites were interleaved with nylon 6,6 nonwoven fabrics with an areal weight density of 17 gsm. The carbon fiber/epoxy composite laminates with/without nylon 6,6 nonwoven fabric interlayers were manufactured by VARTM technique. Double cantilever beam fracture toughness tests were carried out on the prepared composite test specimens in accordance with ASTM 5528 standard. The experimental test data were statistically analyzed by two-parameter Weibull distribution. The results showed that the initiation and propagation fracture toughness Mode-I fracture toughness of carbon fiber/epoxy composites could be improved by about 34 and 156% (corresponding to a reliability level of 0.50) with the incorporation of nylon 6,6 interlayers in the interlaminar region, respectively. The results also revealed that the percent increase in the propagation fracture toughness value was 67 and 41% at reliability levels of 0.90 and 0.95, respectively.

In this study, multi-layered composite overwrapped pressure vessels for high-pressure gaseous storage were designed, modeled by finite element method and manufactured by filament winding technique. 34CrMo4 steel was selected as a load-sharing metallic liner. Glass and carbon filaments were overwrapped on the liner with a winding angle of [±11°/90°2]3 to obtain fully overwrapped composite reinforced vessel with non-identical front and back dome endings. The vessels were loaded with increasing internal pressure up to the burst pressure level. The mechanical performances of pressure vessels, (i) fully overwrapped with glass fibers and (ii) with additional two carbon hoop layers on the cylindrical section, were investigated by both experimental and numerical approaches. In numerical approaches, finite element analysis was performed featuring a simple progressive damage model available in ANSYS software package for the composite section. The metal liner was modeled as elastic–plastic material. The results reveal that the finite element model provides a good correlation between experimental and numerical strain results for the vessels, together with the indication of the positive effect on radial deformation of the COPVs due to the composite interlayer hybridization. The constructed model was also able to predict experimental burst pressures within a range of 8%. However, the experimental and finite element analysis results showed that hybridization of hoop layers did not have any significant impact on the burst pressure performance of the vessels. This finding was attributed to the change of load-sharing capacity of composite layers due to the stiffness difference of carbon and glass fibers.