Mechanical performance of Continuous/Short carbon Fiber-Reinforced Poly(phenylene sulfide) composites

A method for improving the fracture resistance and mechanical strength behavior of polymer composites by incorporating short carbon fibers into continuous fiber/poly(phenylene sulfide) laminate was explored in this manuscript. This method involves the incorporation of short carbon fibers into continuous carbon fiber thermoplastic laminates, by using the hot compression molding technique. Characterization of a continuous and discontinuous carbon fiber composite material with poly(phenylene sulfide) matrix (S-CCF/PPS laminate) was performed by using tensile, V-Notched Iosipescu, combined load compression and impulse excitation tests. According to the found results for this composite material, it was observed that the tensile strength and the elastic modulus values were 41% and 48% lower than a composite reinforced only by continuous fiber, respectively. The shear strength of the mixed material was found to be 32% lower than a continuous carbon fiber composite. These results were expected since it was used a combination of 50% of continuous and 50% of short carbon fiber, in volume. However, the compression strength of the mixed composite was found to be only 11.9% lower than a laminate reinforced with solely continuous carbon fiber, showing a synergic gain in this case. In addition, the impulse excitation results show that the material mechanical properties are within the expected range, but a high dispersion of the values was observed due probably to the random nature of the discontinuous fiber. Furthermore, it was observed that the failure modes for the composite evaluated in this work are similar to those found for composites processed only with continuous reinforcements and that the models used during the simulations presented similar results to what was found experimentally.