Manufacturing Technology 2018, 18(1):160-164 | DOI: 10.21062/ujep/71.2018/a/1213-2489/MT/18/1/160

The Alternative Procedures of Fiber Volume Ratio Determination of Long-Fiber Carbon - Epoxy Composites

Radek Zbončák, Vlastimil Votrubec, Martin ©vec
VÚTS, a.s., Svárovská 619, 46001 Liberec XI, Czech Republic

The need to determine actual fiber volume ratio of the real composite part manufactured in the semi-closed mold led to application of the alternative procedures than the widely used Burn-off method. The low cost one, which is required preferably by any manufacturer, is based on Archimedes law (AL) and the most accurate determination of volume of displaced water. The more complex method which is based on the reverse engineering approach where the 3D scan technique is used to determine the volume of the part. Both are nondestructive methods. And finally the last method mentioned in this study is a sophisticated optical visualization technique and Figure post-processing by mathematical software (it was used NIS Elements and Wolfram Mathematica). Figures for mathematical post-processing were taken using light optical microscope (LOM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). While better contrast between matrix and fibers is achieved in case of composites filled by transparent fibers, SEM figures provide better image contrast for non-transparent fibers.
The AL and 3D measurement methods are very precise and suitable for orientative control during production, but they give only an average values of the fiber volume ratio in whole product. The mathematical post-processing of image is suitable for laboratory designing of composite part. It is destructive investigation method and image thresholding is time consuming, but on the other hand image processing gives the resultant fiber volume ratio in a particular cross section of the part. That makes the technique a good tool to find the weakest place of the part in meaning of the mechanical properties.

Keywords: Fiber volume ratio, 3D scan, binary image analysis

Published: February 1, 2018  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Zbončák R, Votrubec V, ©vec M. The Alternative Procedures of Fiber Volume Ratio Determination of Long-Fiber Carbon - Epoxy Composites. Manufacturing Technology. 2018;18(1):160-164. doi: 10.21062/ujep/71.2018/a/1213-2489/MT/18/1/160.
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. CHUNG, D. D. L. (1994). Carbon fiber composites, British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, Newton, pp. 81-123. Go to original source...
    2. HULL, D., CLYNE, T. W. (1996). An Introduction to composite materials, Cambridge university press, Cambridge. Go to original source...
    3. ®MINDÁK, M., NOVÁK, P. DEKÝ©, V. (2017). Finite elemnt analysis of the delaminated composite plates reinforced by unidirectional fibers. In: Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 17, pp. 275-280. Go to original source...
    4. BERTHELOT, J. M. (1999). Composite materials: mechanical behavior and structural analysis, Springer-Verlag, New York.
    5. KIM, Y. R., McCARTHY, S. P., FANUCCI, J. P. (1991). Compressibility and relaxation of fiber reinforcements during composite processing. In: Polymer Composites, Vol. 12, pp. 13-19. Go to original source...
    6. LIU, K., PIGGOTT, M. R. (1995). Shear strength of polymers and fibre composites: 2. Carbon/epoxy pultrusions. In: Composites 26, pp. 841-848. Go to original source...
    7. SMETANKA, L., GERLICI, J., LACK, T. PELAGIC, Z. (2015). Homogenization of fibres reniforced composite materials for simulation analysis. In: Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 15, pp. 914-920. Go to original source...
    8. Polymer matrix composites materials usage, design and analysis. In: Composite materials handbook. Volume 3, 2002, Department of Defence USA.
    9. GAY, D. (2015). Composite material. In: Design and Applications. CRC Press. Go to original source...
    10. A. International, ASTM D 3171 - Standard Test Methods for Constituent Content of Composite Materials.
    11. AGARWAL, B. D., BROUTMAN, L. J. Broutman (1987). Vláknové kompozity. Nakladatelství SNTL, Praha.
    12. LUKÁ©OVÁ, V., PEUKERT, P., VOTRUBEC, V. (2016). The influence of fiber volume fraction on thermal conductivity of pultruded profile. In: 18. world academy of science, engineering and technology conference proceedings, Nr. 18, pp. 364-368.
    13. BALAGEAS, D. L., DÉOM, A. A., BOSCHER, D. M. (1987). Characterization and nondestructive testing of Carbon-Epoxy composites by a pulsed photothermal method. In: Materials Evaluation, Vol. 45, pp. 461-465.

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content