Advanced Engineering Research (Mar 2020)
Research and modeling of a multilayer composite material using basalt fabric
Abstract
Introduction. The range of use of composite materials (CM) is constantly expanding, finding application in many areas of mechanical engineering, agricultural technology, aircraft manufacturing, instrumentation, shipbuilding, in the manufacture of high-pressure containers, etc. Quite often, multilayer composites consisting mainly of one type of reinforcing material and a binder are used. Of particular interest is the use of various types of reinforcing materials – more durable in the places of maximum stress in the cross section – in a single composite. As an example, we can use glass and basalt fabrics and fibers using one type of binder. The work objective is to study properties of such a material and to model it using the finite element method.Materials and Methods. The components used are commercially available. BT-11 basalt fabric, TR-0.5 fiberglass, as well as glass mat with a density of 300 g/m2 were used as reinforcing materials. An epoxy resin of the ED-20 grade with a PEPA hardener was used as a binder. Two types of material were also manufactured for tensile and bending tests, respectively, the differences of which consisted in the number, type and layer sequence. For modeling, CAD COM-PASS 3D, APM-FEM module was used.Results. Basalt fabric is used in the outer layers of the composite material, fiberglass – in the inner layers. This approach provides increasing the tensile strength of the composite during tensile and bending; however, critical failure leads to an instant loss of the bearing capacity of the material. The use of glass mat as the core of the composite material showed lower allowable stresses, both tensile and bending; but in case of bending, it turned out that when the material was delaminated, the load-bearing capacity of the material was about 10% of the maximum. Modeling of the material is possible with some assumptions, in view of the size of the final elements.Discussion and Conclusions. The use of basalt fabrics as a reinforcing material provides obtaining products with the properties of both glass and carbon plastics. Such a CM will be slightly more expensive than fiberglass and much cheaper than carbon fiber. Products made of composite materials (equivalent to isotropic materials) can be modeled in computer-aided design systems using the finite element method. It is important to consider the type of loading on the product, since CM mainly have anisotropic properties (the load is applied taking into account the direction of fibers). In multilayer CM from structural fabrics, it is necessary to direct the loads along the fibers. In addition, it is necessary to consider the interlayer shear, different adhesion between the layers, etc. The main assumption of this method is the “constancy” of the material thickness, the number of layers and the order of their location.
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