Evaluation of Mechanical Properties of Hybrid Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites and their Architecture

Traditional fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite that is often fabricated from single type of reinforcement has shown its ability to replace the conventional metallic material counterparts. However, due to several stringent requirements on ductility, this has affected the performance of FRP composites for the structural applications. Therefore, hybrid composites, which combine two or more fiber reinforcements, have been introduced in order to overcome the short of traditional FRP composites. This paper investigates the mechanical properties of three different arrangements of hybrid composites made from glass fiber (plain-woven and stitched bi-axial ±45˚) and plain-woven carbon fiber. Vacuum assisted resin transfer moulding method was employed to fabricate the hybrid composite panels. Mechanical properties such as tensile strength, flexural strength and volume fraction of the hybrid composites were determined per ASTM standards. Experimental results indicate that the [CWW]6 arrangement, where C and W are weaved carbon fiber and glass fiber respectively, were superior in terms of mechanical properties.