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The authors investigate the interlaminar fracture toughness of unidirectional carbon fiber composites with eight different matrix systems. The matrices are blends of epoxy and polyethersulfone (PES) thermoplastic that are additionally reinforced with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Based on the content of PES, different multi-phase morphologies (including particulate, co-continuous, and phase inverted) are obtained. The presence of fibers and CNTs is found to affect these morphologies in the composite. The interlaminar fracture toughness increases for high PES contents where co-continuous and inverted morphologies are present. No synergy between CNTs and PES is observed. The improvements achieved in the study are highest (above 100%) for the composites containing 15% of PES (with and without CNTs).

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