Studies on the Effect of Fibres on Transverse Thermal Expansion of Unidirectional Fibre Reinforced Plastics
S. Kanagaraj
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781 039, Assam, India.
kanagaraj@iitg.ernet.in
ABSTRACT
Thermal expansion of composites influences the dimensional stability and mechanical compatibility in structural materials, which play an important role when they are used in conjunction with other materials. This paper presents the results of thermal expansion and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of glass/epoxy, carbon/epoxy and Kevlar/epoxy unidirectional composites at perpendicular to the fibre direction in the temperature range of 40K-300K, which was obtained by a cryogen free experimental setup using 3-terminal capacitance technique. The effects of concentration of fibre and temperature on thermal expansion of the composites were studied. The results show that thermal expansion decreases with temperature and fibre concentration. CTE decreases with an increase of fibre concentration. Different theoretical models have been used to predict CTE of composites and compared with that of experimental results.
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