Realizing the theoretical stiffness of graphene in composites through confinement between carbon fibers

Chu, J., Young, R.J., Slater, T.J.A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0372-1551, Burnett, T.L., Coburn, B., Chichignoud, L., Vuilleumier, A. and Li, Z. 2018. Realizing the theoretical stiffness of graphene in composites through confinement between carbon fibers. Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing 113 , pp. 311-317. 10.1016/j.compositesa.2018.07.032

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Abstract

It is shown that approximately 2 wt% of graphene in the matrix of a unidirectionally-reinforced carbon fiber epoxy composite leads to a significant enhancement in mechanical properties. Particularly, it is found that the axial stiffness of the composites is increased by ∼10 GPa accompanied by an increase in axial strength of 200 MPa. X-ray computed tomography and polarized Raman spectroscopy have demonstrated that the graphene is predominately aligned parallel to the carbon fibers axes. Stress-induced Raman band shifts showed that the confined and self-aligned graphene is subjected to high levels of stress during axial deformation of the composite, with an effective Young's modulus of ∼825 GPa, approaching its theoretical value of 1050 GPa. This behavior has been modeled using the rule of mixtures and shear-lag analysis and it is demonstrated that highly-aligned graphene in a constrained environment between fibers gives significantly better mechanical reinforcement than graphene in conventional polymer-based nanocomposites.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Chemistry
Additional Information:	This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISBN:	1359835X
ISSN:	1359-835X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	7 March 2022
Date of Acceptance:	25 July 2018
Last Modified:	23 May 2023 23:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/147178

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