Optically-derived mechanical properties of glass fiber-reinforced polymer laminates for multifunctional load-bearing structures

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how the translucency of glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) laminates allows the derivation of their mechanical properties through optical measurements. Spectrophotometric, goniophotometric and tensile experiments were performed on unidirectional and cross-ply hand lay-up GFRP laminates with fiber volume fractions ranging from 0.15 to 0.45. An analytical model to predict the directional fiber volume fractions—and thus the mechanical properties of GFRP laminates—has been developed based on the total and diffuse transmittance and directional light scattering of the laminates. It is demonstrated that structurally optimized GFRP laminates can meet the requirements for GFRP skylights and the encapsulation of photovoltaic cells into translucent GFRP laminates.

Method of Manufacturing Structural, Optically Transparent Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (tGFRP) Using Infusion Techniques with Epoxy Resin Systems and E-Glass Fabrics

“…As E-glass fibers and an epoxy-based polymer matrix were used in this study, the amorphous material criterion applies. In the literature, both glass fibers and ribbons were used together with an epoxy-based polymer matrix [2,8,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. On the other hand, nanofiber-reinforced transparent composites were produced using the above-mentioned principle that their structures are smaller than the wavelength of visible light [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32].…”

“…The manufacturing of epoxy-based transparent fiber-reinforced composites is possible using simple experimental setups such as casting into a teflon-coated tray containing fibers [19], using hand-layup techniques [10,13] or pressing a fiber resin system stack between two glass plates using a vacuum bag for compaction [11]. Some other approaches feature vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) [2,14].…”