Polyphenylene sulfide composite laminate from flexible nonwovens and carbon fiber fabrics prepared by thermal lamination and thermal treatment

In this work, with the flexible carbon fiber (CF) fabric and polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) nonwovens as reinforcement and matrix, respectively, the composites were prepared by thermo-compression lamination to obtain the rigid CF/PPS composite laminates. We investigated effects of the pretreating on CF fabric with silane coupling agent (KH560) and the thermal treatment on the mechanical properties, crystalline behaviors and micromorphologies of the composites. It was found that the appropriate thermal treatment conditions and the use of KH560 are necessary to strengthen the interface bonding between CF and PPS matrix, which is verified by the morphologies of fracture surfaces of CF/PPS composites. Under the thermal treatment condition of 240 °C for 1 h, the CF/PPS composite laminate has a relatively high crystallinity and mechanical properties. The tensile strength, tensile modulus, flexural strength, flexural modulus, interlaminar shear strength and impact strength of the composite laminates reach 930.4 MPa, 9.4 GPa, 950.6 MPa, 60.5 GPa, 40.3 MPa and 68.7 MPa.