STRUCTURAL MODELLING OF THE STRENGTH PROPERTIES OF POLYMER COMPOSITES

This paper analyses the relationship between the structural complexity and the strength properties of fibrous composite materials fabricated by vacuum bag moulding. It shows that the mathematical model based on the critical volume fraction provides relatively good results. The materials under study were three- and five-layer sandwich-structured composites. Composite A consisted of a fibreglass core and two carbon fibre fabric skins. In composite B there was a polyester core between two fibreglass layers and two carbon fibre fabric skins. The results obtained for the materials suggest that this method can be used by design engineers working with a wide variety of polymer composites.