Estimation of anisotropic elastic properties of carbon fibers using nanoindentation

Abstract

Understanding the mechanical behavior of carbon fiber reinforced polymers requires knowledge on the deformation behavior of carbon fibers, they are highly anisotropic and heterogeneous. Nanoindentation is an efficient method for determining the mechanical properties in small volumes of materials. For isotropic materials, a single nanoindentation test can evaluate an elastic properties of the material. But for anisotropic material, the difficulty increases since measured indentation modulus depends on five elastic parameters (El,Et,Glt, νlt,and νtt) of the material. Nanoindentation experiments are performed on carbon fibers orientated between 0◦ to 90◦ at ten different orientations to the fiber axis. From theoretical models given by Vlassak et al. and Delafargue and Ulm, the elastic constants are predicted numerically by comparing the results of indentation modulus versus orientation angle with the experiments.