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The Tensile Behavior of High-Strength Carbon Fibers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2016

Tye Langston
Tye Langston*
Affiliation:
Science and Technology Department, Naval Surface Warfare Center, 110 Vernon Avenue, Panama City, FL 32407, USA
*
*Corresponding author. tye.langston@navy.mil
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Abstract

Carbon fibers exhibit exceptional properties such as high stiffness and specific strength, making them excellent reinforcements for composite materials. However, it is difficult to directly measure their tensile properties and estimates are often obtained by tensioning fiber bundles or composites. While these macro scale tests are informative for composite design, their results differ from that of direct testing of individual fibers. Furthermore, carbon filament strength also depends on other variables, including the test length, actual fiber diameter, and material flaw distribution. Single fiber tensile testing was performed on high-strength carbon fibers to determine the load and strain at failure. Scanning electron microscopy was also conducted to evaluate the fiber surface morphology and precisely measure each fiber’s diameter. Fiber strength was found to depend on the test gage length and in an effort to better understand the overall expected performance of these fibers at various lengths, statistical weak link scaling was performed. In addition, the true Young’s modulus was also determined by taking the system compliance into account. It was found that all properties (tensile strength, strain to failure, and Young’s modulus) matched very well with the manufacturers’ reported values at 20 mm gage lengths, but deviated significantly at other lengths.

Keywords

carbon fiberweak link scalingtensile strengthYoung’s modulus
Type
Materials Applications
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , August 2016 , pp. 841 - 844
Copyright
© Microscopy Society of America 2016 

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