Tensile behavior of on- and off-axis carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites incorporating steel wire mesh

Abstract

This paper experimentally investigates the tensile behavior of hybrid composites made with on- and off-axis carbon fiber reinforced polymer that incorporates stainless steel wire mesh. Various layers of off-axis carbon fiber, layers of steel wire mesh, and levels of curing temperature were used as test parameters. The test results indicated that the test specimens using an intermediate amount of carbon fiber layers (three and five off-axis layers) showed an inclined fracture of carbon fiber layers at failure, whereas the specimens using a large amount of carbon fiber layers (ten off-axis layers) exhibited a significant lateral contraction at failure. In particular, the use of a large amount of off-axis carbon fiber layers could significantly increase the initial stiffness, peak load, and residual load of the hybrid composites, in particular, when using steel wire mesh layers. In addition, the tensile behavior of the hybrid composites was governed by the combined effect of the steel wire mesh layers and the number of off-axis carbon fiber fabric layers. A model was proposed to predict the mechanical properties of the hybrid composite specimens, and the prediction results showed good agreement with the test results. © 2019