Fatigue Behavior Of Chopped Carbon Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites

Abstract

Hand-lay up method was used to prepare the samples made of epoxy (EP) as a matrix reinforced with chopped carbon fibers (CCF). The fatigue behavior of epoxy resin /chopped carbon fiber composites was studied with different weight percentage of chopped carbon fibers (2.5%,5%,7.5%,10%,12.5%). The fatigue test was carried out under alternate bending method, which was made by applying sinusoidal wave with constant displacement (15mm), stress ratio R=-1,and loading frequency 10Hz, which is believed to give a negligible temperature rise during the test. The results of the maximum stress, fatigue strength, fatigue limit and fatigue life of the tested composites are calculated from stress(S)-number of cycles(N) (S-N) curves.
It was shown that increasing weight percentage of chopped carbon fibers increase the values of maximum stress for all composites, while the values of fatigue strength, fatigue limit and fatigue life increasing for all composites except the composite with reinforcing weight 12.5%, which was subjected to rapid failure (fracture). This failure could be due to the debonding of the chopped carbon fibers from the matrix epoxy.