Elevated temperature mechanical behavior of waste short carbon fiber incorporated glass fiber/epoxy composites

Abstract The fabrication of carbon fiber‐reinforced polymer composites generates vast amounts of waste carbon fiber. In the present work, these waste carbon fibers were added in varying contents (0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 wt%) to glass fiber/epoxy (GE) composite as short carbon fibers (SCFs) to improve its ambient and elevated temperature mechanical performance. The flexural and tensile behavior of the SCF modified GE composites were assessed at 30, 50, 70, and 110°C. The most significant improvement in mechanical performance was achieved by adding only 0.1 wt% of SCF into GE composite across most of the temperatures. At elevated temperatures , all the SCF‐modified GE composites showed superior mechanical performance over the control GE composite. An important correlation between SCF content in GE composite and elevated temperature mechanical performance enhancement has been discussed. Differential scanning calorimetry was performed to understand the effect of SCF addition on GE composite's glass transition behavior. Fractography was conducted to study the various failure mechanisms at ambient and elevated temperatures .