Mechanical property and fracture mechanism of glass fiber reinforced polymer and carbon fiber reinforced polymer

Abstract

In the automotive field, most of the manufacturers are looking to replace the material steel, aluminium with lightweight material like carbon fiber or glass fiber composite. The purpose are due to their relatively high strength, higher chemical resistance, flexible usage temperature and higher stiffness than steel. In this study, mechanical properties of carbon fiber and glass fiber reinforced polymer were investigate. It was find that the tensile strength of carbon fiber composite is approximately 11% higher than that of glass fiber, almost twice in Young's modulus than that of glass fiber. Carbon fiber is two times higher than glass fiber in both flexural stress and young modulus of flexural three points bending test. Image analysis of fracture and damage were detect by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) in microstructure scale to observe the fracture mechanism. Observed different failure mode in fiber and resin. Chemical composition of composite and fibers were investigated by using electron dispersive x-ray (EDX) spectroscopy that gave out in 88 w.t % of carbon and 12 w.t % in carbon fiber twill (CFT) composite. On the other hand, glass fiber woven (GFW) composite contained 72.7 w.t % of C, 20.7 w.t % of O2, and the rest contained Si, Ca, Al, Mg and Cl.