A cost-effective approach for producing carbon composite by altering the fiber architecture and hybridization

Abstract

Carbon composites have been used in high-performance applications like automotive, marine, civil engineering, and many more. But due to their high cost, researchers have focused their efforts on the development of sustainable carbon composites. In various applications, the material is loaded in a specific direction, and higher strength is needed in that direction. So, in the other direction, the material which provides the needed performance for the product with less cost can be substituted. This cost-effectiveness of composite is attained by the hybridization approach. For this study, carbon composite is considered, wherein the loading direction carbon yarn has been taken whereas it has been substituted with high density polyethylene (HDPE) flat yarn for cost reduction in other direction. Hand lay-up technique is used to prepare carbon-HDPE epoxy hybrid composites. Mechanical properties: tensile, flexural & impact, and physical properties like density and fiber volume fraction were studied. Assessment of performance and comparison of mechanical properties of composites with varying fiber architecture viz. plain, twill, and sateen, is done by taking stacking sequence as constant. A comparison has been established between these composites and metals like steel and aluminium by their specific strength. It is observed that it exhibits satisfactory specific strength in the direction of load. It displays high tensile stress, flexural strength, and impact strength. Comparison with carbon composites showed analogous values in the loading direction. Thus, cost-effective and functionally beneficial hybrid composite materials can be developed by incorporating the suitable hybridization, layering sequence, and architecture of the fabric.