Micromechanics analysis of Kevlar-29 aramid fiber and epoxy resin microdroplet composite by Micro-Raman spectroscopy

The effect of geometry on interfacial micromechanical behavior of fiber/matrix microdroplets is investigated by means of the combination of microbond test and Micro-Raman spectroscopy in this paper. Microbond test is usually employed to measure the interfacial properties of fiber/matrix composites. Since the existing method was realized through traditional microscopy technique, the test results may not satisfy those accurate analyses such as geometry influence on interfacial micromechanical behavior of composites. To overcome this problem, Micro-Raman spectroscopy is introduced into the microbond test to detect the distributions of micromechanical properties including fiber axial stress, residual stress, interfacial shear stress and stress transfer length along the interfaces between Kevlar-29 aramid fiber and epoxy resin matrix microdroplets. The obtained experimental results show that axial stress transfer will accelerate and then the shear stress concentration will be enhanced along with an increase in the interfacial edge angle. The study indicates that the geometrical characteristics can affect significantly the stress distributions in the fiber/matrix microdroplets. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.