Effect of Thermal Cycling on the Tensile Behavior of CF/AL Fiber Metal Laminates

Abstract

The objective of this research work was to estimate the effect of thermal cycling on the tensile behavior of CARALL composites. Fiber metal laminates (FMLs), based on 2D woven carbon fabric and 2024-T3 Alclad aluminum alloy sheet, was manufactured by pressure molding technique followed by hand layup method. Before fabrication, aluminum sheets were anodized with phosphoric acid to produce micro porous alumina layer on surface. This micro-porous layer is beneficial to produce strong bonding between metal and fiber surfaces in FMLs. The effect of thermal cycling (-65 to +70ºC) on the tensile behavior of Cf/Al based FML was studied. Tensile strength was increased after 10 thermal cycles, but it was slightly decreased to some extent after 30, and 50 thermal cycles. Tensile modulus also shown the similar behavior as that of tensile strength.

Keywords

• composite material
• aluminum
• anodizing process
• carbon fiber
• thermal cycling
• tensile strength