L-shaped structures made from ultrathin chopped carbon fiber tape reinforced thermoplastics: delamination behavior and optimization. (3rd September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Guo, Qitao; Ohsawa, Isamu; Takahashi, Jun
• Is Part Of: Advanced composite materials. Volume 28:Number 5(2019)
• Page Start: 479
• Page End: 489
• Publication Date: 2019-09-03
• Subjects: ultrathin chopped carbon fiber tape reinforced thermoplastics (UT-CTT) -- L-shaped structure -- interlaminar tensile strength -- free-shape optimization; Composite materials -- Periodicals; Reinforced plastics -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 620.11805
• DOI: 10.1080/09243046.2019.1576011
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0924-3046

Abstract

Abstract : We examined L-shaped structures prepared from ultrathin chopped carbon fiber tape reinforced thermoplastics (UT-CTT), attempting to mitigate their delamination and minimize interlaminar out-of-plane tensile stress using four-point bending tests and finite element modeling. The reasonable agreement between experimental and simulated results was achieved, and interlaminar tensile strength was obtained by finite element modeling and analytical methods. Additionally, free-shape optimization was utilized. The structural optimization problem was formulated using interlaminar tensile stress as the objective function (with constraints placed on structural stiffness and weight), and thickness variations of the inner parts of the L-shaped structure were used as design variables. Optimization reduced the interlaminar tensile stress of the L-shaped structure from 53.77 to 37.29 MPa while maintaining its original stiffness and weight, suggesting that the described approach is generally applicable to determining the interlaminar tensile strength of UT-CTT and can be used to increase the delamination initiation load.