Effect of Strain Rate on Tensile Properties of Carbon Fiber Epoxy-Impregnated Bundle Composite

The tensile tests for high tensile strength polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based (T1000GB) carbon fiber epoxy-impregnated bundle composite at various strain rates ranging from 3.33 x 10(-5) to 6.0 x 10(2) s(-1) (various crosshead speeds ranging from 8.33 x 10(-7) to 1.5 x 10(1) m/s) were investigated. The statistical distributions of the tensile strength were also evaluated. The results clearly demonstrated that the tensile strength of bundle composite slightly increased with an increase in the strain rate (crosshead speed) and the Weibull modulus of tensile strength for the bundle composite decreased with an increase in the strain rate (crosshead speed), there is a linear relation between the Weibull modulus and the average tensile strength on log-log scale.