Development of damage mechanisms of carbon fibre-reinforced polymer using acoustic emission: effect of plasma surface treatment

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80748-0_30

This study investigates the effect of atmospheric pressure air plasma (APA) treatment on the mechanical performance, damage mechanisms and damage propagation of carbon fiber (CF)/Epoxy composites by utilizing Acoustic emission (AE) method. CF fabrics are treated with APA prior to manufacturing of composites through vacuum-assisted resin infusion (VARI) process. Manufactured composites are tested for mode-I and mode-II fracture toughness tests in accordance with EN 6033, and EN6034standards,respectively. APA treatment resulted in improvements of GIC and GIIC values up to 32% and 40% over non-treated specimen. AE analysis revealed four discrete clusters representing different damage modes such as matrix cracking, interlaminar damages, fiber pull-out, and fiber breakage. The findings of the study indicate that APA treatment enhances the mechanical performance and alters the damage mechanism and propagation.