Investigation on Static and Dynamic Mechanical Properties of Epoxy Based Woven Fabric Glass/Carbon Hybrid Composite Laminates

Balanced mechanical properties within the fabric plane and excellent formability have rendered the woven glass fabric composite laminates popular in aircraft, automobile, marine and civil structures. In practice, while preferring glass woven fabric layers in fabrication, to achieve the required design strength, the nominal size of the component was increased. This increased the total weight of the component. In the present work, glass laminate is strengthened and stiffened by interplying high modulus carbon fabric layers for attaining better specific properties. Two symmetrical four layered glass/carbon hybrid laminates and two dedicated four layered glass or carbon laminates were fabricated separately using the hand lay up and compression moulding techniques. The static mechanical properties like tensile strength, flexural strength and impact strength and dynamic mechanical properties such as storage modulus, loss modulus and loss factor of these laminates were experimentally evaluated as per ASTM standards and reported. The influence of stacking sequence of composite laminates on static and dynamic mechanical properties was discussed in detail. The modulus curves of dedicated and hybrid composite laminates in a Cole-Cole plot show an imperfect semi-circular curve indicating the heterogeneity of the laminates and relatively good fibre/matrix bonding. A conclusion as to the superiority of one of the hybrid constructions for structural applications could also be reached.