Fracture and fatigue behaviour of carbon fibre composites with nanoparticle-sized fibres

Abstract Fibre composites with thermoset polymer matrices are widely used. However, thermosets are very brittle, which can limit the applications of fibre composites. In this work, silica nanoparticles (SNPs) were used to modify two fibre sizings to improve the toughness of carbon fibre composites. Mode I interlaminar fracture and fatigue crack growth tests were conducted on the composites made using the silica nanoparticle-sized fibres. There was no significant change in the fatigue crack growth rate with the addition of SNPs. However, the addition of SNPs to either sizing increased the composite toughness. The fracture energy was significantly increased from 166 J/m 2 to 220 J/m 2 (increased by 33%) with only 0.89 wt% on fibre weight of SNPs. This is significantly more efficient than adding SNPs into the matrix, which can require addition of up to 20 wt% of SNPs [1] , to achieve the same improvement in toughness.