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Applied Composite Materials: An International Journal for the Science and Application of Composite Materials (v.11, #1)
Impact Resistance of Short Fibre/Particle Reinforced Epoxy by L. Chang; Z. Zhang; C. Breidt (pp. 1-15).
The influence of temperature on the fracture behaviour of epoxy-based composites was studied using an instrumented Charpy impact approach. A series of epoxy reinforced with short carbon fibres (SCF) and additionally filled with various amounts of PTFE and graphite particles was considered in this study. Unnotched specimens were tested at −196 °C, 20 °C, and 70 °C, respectively. It was found that, for specimens with the same matrix content, a proper hybridisation of composites was possible to achieve a better impact performance compared to single-filler/epoxy. For example, 10 vol.%PTFE+10 vol.%SCF/epoxy exhibited a higher impact resistance than that of 20 vol.%SCF/epoxy at all measured temperatures. Failure mechanisms at different temperatures were discussed with SEM fractography.
Keywords: impact resistance; temperature effects; Charpy test; epoxy composite; short carbon fibre; PTFE; graphite
Improvement of Mechanical Properties of Oligomer-modified Acrylic Bone Cement with Glass-fibers by Mervi A. Puska; Lippo V. Lassila; Timo O. Närhi; Antti U. O. Yli-Urpo; Pekka K. Vallittu (pp. 17-31).
Some mechanical properties of oligomer-modified acrylic bone cement with glass-fibers were studied. Under wet environments, oligomer-filler forms a porous structure in the acrylic bone cement. Test specimens were manufactured using commercial bone cement (Palacos® R) with different quantities of an experimental oligomer-filler (0–20 wt%), and included continuous unidirectional E-glass fibers (l=65 mm) or chopped E-glass fibers (l=2 mm). The specimens were either tested dry, or after being immersed under wet environments for one week. The three-point bending test was used to measure the flexural strength and modulus of the acrylic bone cement composites (analysis with ANOVA). A scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to examine the surface structure of the acrylic bone cement composites. Using continuous glass-fiber reinforcement, the dry flexural strength was 145 MPa and modulus was 4.6 GPa for the plain bone cement. For the test specimens with 20 wt% of oligomer-filler and continuous unidirectional glass-fibers, the dry flexural strength was 118 MPa and modulus was 4.2 GPa, whereas the wet flexural strength was 66 MPa and modulus was 3.0 GPa. The results suggest that the reduced flexural properties caused by the porosity of oligomer-modified bone cement can be compensated with glass-fiber reinforcement.
Keywords: bone cement; glass-fibers; fiber reinforcement; mechanical properties; porosity; PMMA
Effective Elastic and Plastic Properties of Interpenetrating Multiphase Composites by Xi-Qiao Feng; Zhi Tian; Ying-Hua Liu; Shou-Wen Yu (pp. 33-55).
In interpenetrating phase composites, there are at least two phases that are each interconnected in three dimensions, constructing a topologically continuous network throughout the microstructure. The dependence relation between the macroscopically effective properties and the microstructures of interpenetrating phase composites is investigated in this paper. The effective elastic moduli of such kind of composites cannot be calculated from conventional micromechanics methods based on Eshelby's tensor because an interpenetrating phase cannot be extracted as dispersed inclusions. Using the concept of connectivity, a micromechanical cell model is first presented to characterize the complex microstructure and stress transfer features and to estimate the effective elastic moduli of composites reinforced with either dispersed inclusions or interpenetrating networks. The Mori–Tanaka method and the iso-stress and iso-strain assumptions are adopted in an appropriate manner of combination by decomposing the unit cell into parallel and series sub-cells, rendering the calculation of effective moduli quite easy and accurate. This model is also used to determine the elastoplastic constitutive relation of interpenetrating phase composites. Several typical examples are given to illustrate the application of this method. The obtained analytical solutions for both effective elastic moduli and elastoplastic constitutive relations agree well with the finite element results and experimental data.
Keywords: micromechanics; constitutive relation; effective elastic moduli; interpenetrating phase composite; finite element analysis; Mori–Tanaka method; connectivity