Industrial manufacturing and characterization of multiscale CFRP laminates made from prepregs containing graphene-related materials

TL;DR

This study demonstrates an industrially viable method to produce multiscale CFRP laminates with graphene-related materials, enhancing mechanical and electrical properties for aerospace applications.

Contribution

It introduces a standard manufacturing process for multiscale CFRP composites with GRMs, evaluating their properties and potential for aerospace industry use.

Findings

Enhanced in-plane shear and delamination resistance with GO and rGO addition.

Improved electrical conductivity with GNP incorporation.

Manufacturing quality comparable to conventional CFRPs.

Abstract

The introduction of graphene-related materials (GRMs) in carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRP) has been proved to enhance their mechanical and electrical properties. However, methodologies to produce the 3-phase materials (multiscale composites) at an industrial scale and in an efficient manner are still lacking. In this paper, multiscale CFRP composites containing different GRMs have been manufactured following standard procedures currently used in the aerospace industry with the aim to evaluate its potential application. Graphite nanoplateletelets (GNPs), in situ exfoliated graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) have been dispersed into an epoxy resin to subsequently impregnate aeronautical grade carbon fibre tape. The resulting prepregs have been used for manufacturing laminates by hand lay-up and autoclave curing at 180 {\deg}C. Abroad characterization campaign has been carried out to understand the behaviour of the different multiscale laminates manufactured. The degree of cure, glass transition temperature and degradation temperature have been evaluated by thermal evolution techniques. Similarly, their mechanical properties (tensile, flexural, in-plane shear, interlaminar shear and mode I interlaminar fracture toughness) have been analysed together with their electrical conductivity. The manufacturing process resulted appropriated for producing three-phase laminates and their quality was as good as in conventional CFRPs. The addition ofGOand rGO resulted in an enhancement of the in-plane shear properties and delamination resistance while the addition ofGNPimproved the electrical conductivity.