Ultrasonic and acoustic emission techniques were used to monitor and evaluate material damage in a graphite/epoxy laminate containing a machined hole as an initial flaw and subjected to fully reversed spectrum fatigue loading at room temperature. It was found that the flaw growth progressed radially around the initial hole at a uniform rate during cycling at the lower stress levels. At the high...

Sandwich structure composites produced by epoxy core and aluminium skin were developed as potential building materials. Interface bonding between core and skin was controlled by varying kenaf content. Five different weight percentage of kenaf loading ranging from 10 wt% to 50 wt% were employed in the core manufacturing in order to study the mechanical properties of the sandwich composite. Prope...

The question of the effective response of two-phase hybrid “fibrous-laminate” piezoelectric composites, with periodic microstructure, is adressed with two homogenization approaches: a full-field numerical scheme based on Fourier transform and a simplifying approach relying on a decoupled two-step homogenisation process. In the case of a two-phase epoxy/PZT composite, this latter is shown to ove...

The impact damage response of balsa core sandwich composite plates with S2-glass/ epoxy reinforced facesheets is evaluated by impacting them with a spherical steel projectile at single impact locations. The impact damage can significantly reduce the structural integrity and load bearing capacity of a composite structure. Under high velocity impact loading, laminated composites experience signif...

Use of composites for a range of structural application in aircrafts, space-crafts, automobiles, etc., has widely spread in the last few years. Other than weight reduction, cut-outs provide pathways to link different aircraft parts. In this paper, an experimental investigation was conducted to study the effect of a cut-out on the tensile strength of the fiber glass/ epoxy composite plate. Geome...

With the increasing applications of laminated composites in all kinds of industries, it becomes imperative to detect delamination, a frequently occurring damage which causes substantial stiffness loss in composite structures. This paper presents an approach to assess delaminations (in terms of their size, in-plane location and interface) in fibre reinforced laminated composite plates using natu...

A lignin-epoxy resin composite was prepared by blending lignin/wood flour with an epoxy resin and polyamine. The effects of the wood flour on the mechanical, thermal creep, and creep recovery properties, as well as the microstructure of the composite, were studied. Among the mechanical properties, the initial modulus increased with increasing content of wood flour. The glass transition temperat...

An additive manufacturing process that combines digital modeling and 3D printing was used to prepare fiber reinforced hydrogels in a single-step process. The composite materials were fabricated by selectively pattering a combination of alginate/acrylamide gel precursor solution and an epoxy based UV-curable adhesive (Emax 904 Gel-SC) with an extrusion printer. UV irradiation was used to cure th...

Curing rates of an epoxy amine system were varied via different curing cycles, and glass-fiber epoxy composites were prepared using the same protocol, with the aim of investigating the correlation between microstructure and composite properties. It was found that the fast curing cycle resulted in a non-homogenous network, with a larger percentage of a softer phase. Homogenized composite propert...

The potential of inorganic nanomaterials as reservoirs for healing agents is presented here. Mesoporous silica (SBA-15) and TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) were synthesized. Both epoxy-encapsulated TiO2 nanotubes and amine-immobilized mesoporous silica were incorporated into epoxy and subsequently coated on a carbon steel substrate. The encapsulated TiO2 nanotubes was quantitatively estimated using a 'de...