Development and Mechanical Testing of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Matrix Composites for Micro Wind Turbine Applications

Abstract

In this century, composites have been discovered to be the most promising and discriminating material accessible. Composites reinforced with synthetic or natural fibres are becoming more popular as demand for light weight, high strength materials for specialized applications grows are on the rise in the market. In the current work Carbon fiber Reinforced Polymer Matrix Composite material is developed aiming wind turbine blade applications. This research demonstrates the successful development of a carbon fibre reinforced Epoxy matrix composite that can be utilized to make micro wind turbine blades and is very cost effective thanks to the utilization of a simple hand lay-up approach. The peak elongation varies from 12.248 mm to 14.417 mm, and the tensile strength varies from 939.472 N/mm2 to 960.910 N/mm2. It was observed that the Compressive Strength varies from 8.992 N/mm2 to 46.895 N/ mm2 and peak elongation varies from 1.808 mm to 3.462 mm. In three-point bending test, the peak load was found to be 509.96 N. Due to the presence of carbon fibre reinforcement, the bending strength of polyester resin has been greatly increased.