Bharathiyar College of Engineering and Technology COMPOSITE MATERIALS AND MECHANICS

SUBMITTED BY M.PALANIVENDHAN M.TECH FIRST YEAR

FIBERS FIBERS
Fibers are the principal constituent s in a fiber -reinforce d compo site material. They occupy the largest volume fraction in a composite laminate and share the major portion of the load acting on a composite structure. Proper selection of the fiber type, fiber volume fraction , fiber length, and fiber orientation is very important, since it influences the following characteristic s of a composite Laminate: 1. Density 2. Tensile strength and modulus 3. Compressive strength and modulus 4. Fatigue strength as well as fatigue failure mechanisms 5. Electrical and thermal conductivity 6. Cost Fiber is a rope or string used as a component of composite materials, or matted] into sheets to make products such as paper or felt. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials are generally made as fibers, for example carbon fiber and Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene. Synthetic fibers can often be produced very cheaply and in large amounts compared to natural fibers, but for clothing natural fibers can give some benefits, such as comfort, over their synthetic counterparts. Natural fibers Natural fibers include those produced by plants, animals, and geological processes. They are biodegradable over time. They can be classified according to their origin:

Vegetable fibers are generally based on arrangements of cellulose, often with lignin: examples include cotton, hemp, jute, flax, ramie,sisal and bagasse. Plant fibers are employed in the manufacture of paper and textile (cloth). Wood fiber, distinguished from vegetable fiber, is from tree sources. Forms include groundwood, thermomechanical pulp (TMP) and bleached or unbleached kraft or sulfite pulps. Kraft and sulfite, also called sulphite, refer to the type of pulping process used to remove the lignin bonding the original wood structure, thus freeing the fibers for use in paper and engineered wood products such asfiberboard. Animal fibers consist largely of particular proteins. Instances are silkworm silk, spider silk, sinew, catgut, wool, sea silk and hair such as cashmere wool, mohair and angora, fur such as sheepskin, rabbit, mink, fox, beaver, etc. Mineral fibers include the asbestos group. Asbestos is the only naturally occurring long mineral fiber. Six minerals have been classified as "asbestos" including chrysotile of the serpentine class and those belonging to

the amphibole class: amosite, crocidolite,tremolite, anthophyllite and actinolite. Short, fiber-like minerals include wollastonite and palygorskite. Synthetic fibers
Synthetic generally come from synthetic materials such as petrochemicals but some types of synthetic fibers are manufactured from natural cellulose, including rayon, modal, and Lyocell. Cellulose-based fibers are of two types, regenerated or pure cellulose such as from the cupro-ammonium process and modified cellulose such as the cellulose acetates.[2] Fiber classification in reinforced plastics falls into two classes: (i) short fibers, also known as discontinuous fibers, with a general aspect ratio (defined as the ratio of fiber length to diameter) between 20 to 60, and (ii) long fibers, also known as continuous fibers, the general aspect ratio is between 200 to 500

Metallic fibers
Metallic fibers can be drawn from ductile metals such as copper, gold or silver and extruded or deposited from more brittle ones, such as nickel, aluminum or iron. See also Stainless steel fibers.

Carbon fiber
Carbon fibers are often based on oxidized and via paralysis carbonized polymers like PAN, but the end product is almost pure carbon

GLASS FIBER
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass. Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling. In 1893, Edward Drummond Libbey exhibited a dress at the World's Columbian Expositionincorporating glass fibers with the diameter and texture of silk fibers. This was first worn by the popular stage actress of the time Georgia Cayvan. Glass fibres can also occur naturally, as Pele's hair. Glass wool, which is commonly known as "fiberglass" today, however, was invented in 1938 by Russell Games Slayter of Owens-Corning as a material to be used as insulation. It is marketed under the trade name Fiberglas, which has become a genericized trademark. Glass fiber is commonly used as an insulating material. It is also used as a reinforcing agent for many polymer products; to form a very strong and light fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite material called glass-reinforced plastic (GRP), popularly known as "fiberglass". Glass fiber has roughly comparable properties to other fibers such as polymers and carbon fiber. Although not as strong or as rigid as carbon fiber, it is much cheaper and significantly less brittle. Fiber formation Glass fiber is formed when thin strands of silica-based or other formulation glass are extruded into many fibers with small diameters suitable for textile processing. The technique of heating and drawing glass into fine fibers has been known for millennia; however, the use of these fibers for textile applications is more recent. Until this time, all

glass fiber had been manufactured as staple (that is, clusters of short lengths of fiber). The first commercial production of glass fiber was in 1936. In 1938 Owens-Illinois Glass Company and Corning Glass Works joined to form the Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation. When the two companies joined to produce and promote glass fiber, they introduced continuousfilament glass fibers.[1] Owens-Corning is still the major glass-fiber producer in the market today.[2] The types of glass fiber most commonly used are mainly E-glass (alumino-borosilicate glass with less than 1% w/w alkali oxides, mainly used for glass-reinforced plastics), but also Aglass (alkali-lime glass with little or no boron oxide), E-CR-glass (alumino-lime silicate with less than 1% w/w alkali oxides, has high acid resistance), C-glass (alkali-lime glass with high boron oxide content, used for example for glass staple fibers), D-glass (borosilicate glass with low dielectric constant), R-glass (alumino silicate glass without MgO and CaO with high mechanical requirements), and S-glass (alumino silicate glass without CaO but with high MgO content with high tensile strength)

Fig: bundle of glass fibers

Carbon fibers
Carbon fiber, alternatively graphite fiber, carbon graphite or CF, is a material consisting of fibers about 510 m in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. The carbon atoms are bonded together in crystals that are more or less aligned parallel to the long axis of the fiber. The crystal alignment gives the fiber high strength-to-volume ratio (making it strong for its size). Several thousand carbon fibers are bundled together to form a tow, which may be used by itself or woven into a fabric.

The properties of carbon fibers, such as high stiffness, high tensile strength, low weight, high chemical resistance, high temperature tolerance and low thermal expansion, make them very popular in aerospace, civil engineering, military, and motorsports, along with other competition sports. However, they are relatively expensive when compared to similar fibers, such as glass fibers or plastic fibers. Carbon fibers are usually combined with other materials to form a composite. When combined with a plastic resin and wound or molded it forms carbon fiber reinforced plastic (often referred to as carbon fiber) which has a very high strength-to-weight ratio, and is extremely rigid although somewhat brittle. However, carbon fibers are also composed with other materials, such as with graphite to form carbon-carbon composites, which have a very high heat tolerance Structure and Properties Each carbon filament thread is a bundle of many thousand carbon filaments. A single such filament is a thin tube with a diameter of 58micrometers and consists almost exclusively of carbon. The earliest generation of carbon fibers (e.g. T300, HTA and AS4) had diameters of 78 micrometers.[2] Later fibers (e.g. IM6 or IM600) have diameters that are approximately 5 micrometers.[2] The atomic structure of carbon fiber is similar to that of graphite, consisting of sheets of carbon atoms (graphene sheets) arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern. The difference lies in the way these sheets interlock. Graphite is a crystalline material in which the sheets are stacked parallel to one another in regular fashion. The intermolecular forces between the sheets are relatively weak Van der Waals forces, giving graphite its soft and brittle characteristics. Depending upon the precursor to make the fiber, carbon fiber may be turbostratic or graphitic, or have a hybrid structure with both graphitic and turbostratic parts present. In turbostratic carbon fiber the sheets of carbon atoms are haphazardly folded, or crumpled, together. Carbon fibers derived from Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) are turbostratic, whereas carbon fibers derived from mesophase pitch are graphitic after heat treatment at temperatures exceeding 2200 C. Turbostratic carbon fibers tend to have high tensile strength, whereas heat-treated mesophase-pitch-derived carbon fibers have high Young's modulus (i.e., high stiffness or resistance to extension under load) and high thermal conductivity. Application Carbon fiber is most notably used to reinforce composite materials, particularly the class of materials known as carbon fiber or graphite reinforced polymers. Non-polymer materials can also be used as the matrix for carbon fibers. Due to the formation of metal carbides and corrosion considerations, carbon has seen limited success in metal matrix composite applications. Reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) consists of carbon fiber-reinforced graphite, and is used structurally in high-temperature applications. The fiber also finds use in filtration of high-temperature gases, as an electrode with high surface area and impeccable corrosion resistance, and as an anti-static component. Molding a thin layer of carbon fibers significantly improves fire resistance of polymers or thermoset composites because a dense, compact layer of carbon fibers efficiently reflects heat.

Fig : carbon fiber

Ceramic fibers Silicon carbide (SiC) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) fibers are examples of ceramic fibers notable for their high-temperature applications in metal and ceramic matrix composites. Their melting points are 28308C and 20458C, respectively. Silicon carbide retains its strength well above 6508C, and aluminum oxide has excellent strength retention up to about 13708C. Both fibers are suitable for reinforcing metal matrices in which carbon and boron fibers exhibit adverse reactivity. Aluminum oxide fibers have lower thermal and electrical conductivities and have higher coefficient of thermal expansion than silicon carbide fibers. Silicon carbide fibers are available in three different forms 1. Monofilaments that are produced by chemical vapor deposition of b-SiC on a 1025 mm diameter carbon monofilament substrate. The carbon monofilament is previously coated with ~1 mm thick pyrolitic graphite to smoothen its surface as well as to enhance its thermal conductivity. b-SiC is produced by the reaction of silanes and hydrogen gases at around 13008C. The average fiber diameter is 140 mm. 2. Multifilament yarn produced by melt spinning of a polymeric precursor, such as polycarbosilane, at 3508C in nitrogen gas. The resulting polycarbosilane fiber is first heated in air to 1908C for 30 min to cross-link the polycarbosilane molecules by oxygen and then heat-treated to 10008C12008C to form a crystalline structure. The average fiber diameter in the yarn is 14.5 mm and a commercial yarn contains 500 fibers. Yarn fibers have a considerably lower strength than the monofilaments. Many different aluminum oxide fibers have been developed over the years, but many of them at present are not commercially available. One of the early aluminum oxide fibers, but not currently available in the market, is called the Fiber FP [11]. It is a high-purity (>99%) polycrystalline a-Al2O3 fiber, dry spun from a slurry mix of alumina and proprietary spinning additives. The spun filaments are fired in two stages: low firing to control shrinkage, followed by flame firing to produce a suitably dense a-Al2O3. The fired filaments may be

coated with a thin layer of silica to improve their strength (by healing the surface flaws) as well as their wettability with the matrix. The filament diameter is 20 mm. The tensile modulus and tensile strength of Fiber FP are reported as 379 GPa and 1.9 GPa (553106 psi and 275,500 psi), respectively. Experiments have shown that Fiber FP retains almost 100% of its room temperature tensile strength after 300 h of exposure in air at 10008C. Borsic fiber, on the other hand, loses 50% of its room temperature tensile strength after only 1 h of exposure in air at 5008C. Another attribute of Fiber FP is its remarkably high compressive strength, which is estimated to be about 6.9 GPa (1,000,000 psi). Nextel 610 and Nextel 720, produced by 3 M, are two of the few aluminum oxide fibers available in the market now Both fibers are produced in continuous multifilament form using the solgel process. Nextel 610 contains greater than 99% Al2O3 and has a single-phase structure of a-Al2O3. The average grain size is 0.1 mm and the average filament diameter is 14 mm. Because of its fine-grained structure, it has a high tensile strength at room temperature; but because of grain growth, its tensile strength decreases rapidly as the temperature is increased above 11008C. Nextel 720, which contains 85% Al2O3 and 15% SiO2, has a lower tensile strength at room temperature, but is able to retain about 85% of its tensile strength even at 14008C. Nextel 720 also has a much lower creep rate than Nextel 610 and other oxide fibers at temperatures above 10008C. The structure of Nextel 720 contains a-Al2O3 grains embedded in mullite grains. The strength retention of Nextel 720 at high temperatures is attributed to reduced grain boundary sliding and reduced grain growth

Fig : Ceramic fibers

Aramic fibers Aramid fibers are a class of heat-resistant and strong synthetic fibers. They are used in aerospace and military applications, for ballistic rated body armor fabric and ballistic composites, in bicycle tires, and as an asbestos substitute.[1] The name is a portmanteau of "aromatic polyamide". They are fibers in which the chain molecules are highly oriented along the fiber axis, so the strength of the chemical bond can be exploited. Aramids share a high degree of orientation with other fibers such as ultra high molecular weight polyethylene, a characteristic that dominates their properties. Aramid fibers are highly cryst alline aromatic polyam ide fiber s that have the lowest de nsity an d the highest tensile stre ngth-to-w eight ratio among the current reinfo rcing fiber s. Kevlar 49 is the trade name of one of the arami d fiber s availab le in the market. As a reinf orcement, arami d fiber s are used in many marin e a nd aerospac e applic ations wher e lightw eight, high tensile streng th, and resistance to impac t da mage (e.g., caused by accident ally dropp ing a ha nd tool) are impor tant. Li ke carbon fibers, they also ha ve a negati ve coeff icient of therm al expan sion in the longitudinal direction, which is us ed in designi ng low therm al exp ansion c omposi te pan els. The major disadva ntages of aramid fiber-re infor ced composi tes are their low co mpressive stre ngths a nd difficul ty in cutting or machi ning.

Properties
good resistance to organic solvents nonconductive no melting point, degradation starts from 500C low flammability good fabric integrity at elevated temperatures sensitive to acids and salts sensitive to ultraviolet radiation prone to static build-up unless finished[7]

Fig : Aramid fibers