Enhancement of the Fracture Toughness of Carbon-Reinforced Plastics by Introducing a Thermoplastic Phase into an Epoxy Matrix

The effect of modifying additives of polyphenylene sulfone or a nonwoven polyamide material on the thermal and mechanical properties of carbon fabric/epoxy resin polymer composite materials prepared by vacuum forming and vacuum infusion was studied. The addition of 10 wt % polyphenylene sulfone leads to slight improvement of the mechanical properties of the composite material, whereas introduction of the nonwoven material leads to a 15% decrease in the compression strength and to a 6% decrease in the interlayer shear strength. The specific peel work increases by 15 and 270% for the composites modified with polyphenylene sulfone and nonwoven cloth, respectively. Introduction of 4 wt % nonwoven material enhances the fracture toughness of the polymer composite material by a factor of 3.7.