Manufacturing and mechanical properties of thermoplastic hybrid laminates based on DP500 steel

This paper investigates the manufacturing and mechanical properties of thermoplastic composite-metal hybrid laminates based on DP500 steel sheets bonded to a glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene (PP) or to a self-reinforced PP composite materials. Single cantilever beam (SCB) tests revealed that a good level of adhesion can be achieved by using a hot dip zinc surface treatment on the DP500 steel and incorporating an interlayer based on modified polypropylene at the interface between the composite and metal plies. In addition, SCB tests have shown that the interfacial fracture energy of the hybrid laminates increased with increasing crosshead displacement rate. Additional testing of a number of laminates has shown that the tensile properties of these composite-metal hybrid laminates are strongly dependant on the tensile properties of the constituent materials and that a modified rule of mixtures could be used to predict such properties.