X-ray tomography investigation of the use of veils to improve the impact tolerance of thin-ply composite laminates

1 Introduction

Interleaving CoPA veils enhances the interlaminar fracture toughness, impact resistance and impact tolerance; and the improvement accentuates with increased veil fibre areal weight [1-6]. However, an excessive load of veil severely reduces laminate thickness and certain in-plane mechanical properties [3,6,7]. To minimize this trade-off, we used two types of light (4 g/m²) co-polyamide (CoPA) veil.

2 Materials and Methods

2.1 Materials

Laminates were manufactured using (0°/45°) and (0°/-45°) non-crimp fabrics (NCFs) made of T700GC carbon, which are commercialized by Chomarat under the brand name C-PLY^TM. The fibre areal weight of the blankets was 134 g/m² (67 g/m² per unidirectional ply).

Two types of CoPA veils were selected as toughening agent: V₁ and V₂. Their fibre diameter was 37±4 μm and 11±2 μm, respectively (± signifies standard deviation), whereas their fibre areal weight was 4 g/m² in both cases. For further details of the veils’ architecture as well as the laminates’ manufacturing process (resin transfer molding), the reader is referred to [8].

2.2 Experimental campaign

Table 1 Laminates devised for in-plane (tension and compression), mode-I interlaminar fracture toughness and low-velocity impact experiments (impact energy of 14 J). Non-crimp fabric blankets are indicated with parenthesis. The $ sign signifies only one veil in the symmetry plane.

The nominal thickness of baseline and interleaved specimens was 2.2 mm for in-plane and low-velocity impact experiments, whereas that of double cantilever beam samples (DCB) was approximately 3.7 mm.

2.3 X-ray tomography inspection

The experimental campaign was accompanied with two different types of X-ray tomography (Figure 1):

• Micrometric resolution X-ray tomography to understand the impact response of baseline and interleaved laminates (X-ray tomography system in Girona, for further details of the equipment refer to [8-9]),

• nanometric resolution X-ray tomography to gain insight into the microstructure of baseline and interleaved laminates as well as into the fracture process zone of DCB specimens (Zeiss 160 kVp Versa 510 scanner at the μ-VIS X-ray Imaging Centre, University of Southampton).

3 Results and Discussion

Figure 2 illustrates the effect interleaving has on interface thickness, while Figure 3 summarizes the mechanical properties of the thin-ply baseline and interleaved configurations. The success of the initial objective is evident: interleaving V₂ veils improves impact resistance, tolerance and mode-I interlaminar fracture toughness with minimum reduction of tensile and compressive properties.

Interleaving both types of veil into the interfaces of the thin-ply laminate did not increase the baseline laminate thickness because of the combination of low veil fibre areal weight (4 g/m²) and resin transfer moulding manufacturing (all the laminates fitted within the same mould). The lack of porosity is also attributed to the low fibre areal weight of the veils: light veils allow through-the-thickness resin flow [7,10]. Regarding the adhesion between veil fibres and resin, the sub-micron resolution μCT inspections demonstrated consistent debonding between V₁ fibres and the surrounding resin (refer to LV1_IP in Figure 2). In contrast, the V₂ fibres displayed almost no debonding with the resin. Therefore, V₂ fibres have better

Figure 1 X-ray tomography systems. On the left: Girona’s micrometric resolution equipment. On the right: Southampton’s nanometric.resolution equipment.

Figure 2 Sub-micron resolution X-ray tomography (μCT) cross-sections depicting the microstructure of LTHIN_IP LV1_IPand LV2_IP. adhesion with HexFlow®RTM6 epoxy than V₁ fibres do.

The tensile modulus and strength of LV1_IP and LV2_IP are closely connected to the veil fibre diameter (Figures 2-3). The tensile properties of LV2_IP are similar to those of LTHIN_IP because both laminates have the same nominal thickness, fibre volume fraction and (overall) interface thickness (the V₂ fibres did not increase the interface thickness except for the regions where they agglomerated, Figure 2). Provided that LV1_IP also has a similar nominal thickness and fibre content, the mild decrease of tensile properties can only be attributed to the higher diameter of V₁ fibres (the thick V₁ fibres increased the interface thickness, compacted locally the carbon plies and reduced carbon uniformity across the thickness, Figure 2).

LV1_IP and LV2_IP decreased the compressive strength of LTHIN_IP by 4% and 9% (Figure 3). Compressive strength depends on the ability of the matrix to prevent fibre buckling [7]. Compressive loads rotate the carbon fibres and generate shear stresses that, in turn, further kink the fibres until catastrophic buckling occurs [11]. Therefore, we postulate that interleaving ductile veils reduces the pristine shear strength of the matrix (at least at the low strain-rate of the test [12,15]). Further work will be devoted to correlate veil properties (veil fibre diameter, veil fibre adhesion...) with matrix shear strength.

Regarding mode-I interlaminar fracture toughness, crack propagation is mainly controlled by the adhesion between veil fibres and resin. Fibres with a low adhesion (the V₁ fibres) promote crack growth by debonding from the resin. Fibres with a higher adhesion (the V₂ fibres) deviate crack growth away from the veil (Figure 4) [13]. In LV1_GIC, the mode-I crack confined itself into the 0°/0° interface through interaction with the V₁ fibres. In LV2_GIC, the crack deviated from the 0°/0° interface to the surrounding 0° plies.

Figure 3 Mechanical properties of the thin-ply baseline (LTHIN) laminate and laminates interleaved with V₁ or V₂ veils (LV1 and LV2).

LV2_GIC enhanced G_Iinit and G_Iprop by 101% and 43% compared to LTHIN_GIC, while LV1_GIC only enhanced G_Iinit by 12% (Figure 3). The relation between mode-I interlaminar fracture toughness and veil fibre-resin adhesion is contrary to the one observed in conventional-ply laminates [13]. In those systems, the veil with higher adhesion (V₂) results in the lower G_IC values because it deviates crack propagation from the resin interface (full of veil) to the interfacial region between resin and structural fibres (depleted of veil). The difference is that V₂ deviated crack propagation not to the interfacial region but into the 0° plies (Figure 4), which obviously increased the initiation energy (the crack required extra-energy to circumvent the V₂ fibres and penetrate into the tows). The reason why V₂ deviated crack propagation into the intralaminar region is probably a combination of several factors such as the small interface thickness of thin-plies, the shape distortions induced by the NCF stitches and the low veil fibre diameter preventing resin accumulation in the interfaces. Regarding LV1_GIC, G_Iprop was unaffected because of the low surface area covered by V₁ fibres (22%): the crack encountered few veil fibres during its propagation.

Figure 4 Sub-micron resolution μCT cross-sections depicting the fracture process zone of LTHIN_GIC, LV1_GIC and LV2_GIC double cantilever beam specimens. The crack grows towards the reader.

The positive and subtle effects that V₂ and V₁ veils have on mode-I interlaminar fracture toughness are also replicated on impact resistance: LV2_LVI and LV1_LVI reduced LTHIN_LVI's C-scan damage area by 55% and 15% for impact at 14 J. Besides this, LV2_LVI enhanced the baseline CAI strength by 28% (Figure 3). The impact damage scenario of LV2_LVI evidences that V₂ veils mitigated delamination initiation compared to the non-interleaved laminate (Figure 5). In particular, they arrested delamination induced during the fibre failure event since LTHIN_LVI develops minimum delamination prior to fibre failure [9]. The reason for the damage suppression is probably that V₂ veils enhance the pristine shear strength of the matrix under high-strain rates of the test, which is in agreement with the shear strength reduction under static compression because thermoplastic materials (the veils) suffer strain-rate hardening [12, 15]

LV1_LVI featured an impact scenario comparable to that of LTHIN_LVI, albeit with slightly reduced intensity (Figure 5). This is once again attributed to the low surface area covered by V₁ fibres: there is a few number of fibres available to interact with the crack front.

Most of the mechanical properties of interleaved laminates present a common denominator: they would benefit from thinner veil fibres. For a given veil fibre areal weight, the benefits of reducing veil fibre diameter are two-fold: minimizing the increase of interface thickness and improving the surface area covered by veil fibres. This is supported by the experimental observations of Ramírez et al. [3] and Tsotsis et al. [16]: they improved interlaminar fracture toughness and CAI strength by, for a given veil configuration, increasing the surface area covered by veil fibres.

Figure 5 Damage scenario of LTHIN_LVI, LV1_LVI and LV2_LVI after impact at 14 J.

4 Conclusiones

For the same veil fibre areal weight (4 g/m²), interleaving the veil with the lower fibre diameter improved mode-I interlaminar fracture toughness and impact tolerance with minimum penalty of in-plane (tensile and compressive) properties.

The veil fibre diameter was the crucial in determining the tensile properties: the veil with thinner fibres avoided resin accumulation at the interfaces and displayed the same tensile strength, strain-to-failure and longitudinal modulus as the baseline laminate did.

Mode-I interlaminar crack propagation was mainly controlled by the adhesion between fibres (the veil with a suspected higher adhesion deflected crack propagation from the 0°/0° interface into the 0°plies and increased the baseline initiation and propagation energy).

Both types of veil decreased compressive strength by up to 9% because of an increase in the ductile phase surrounding the carbon plies, which favours fibre buckling. However, the veil with thinner fibres arrested the initiation of delamination during impact at 14 J (damage area was reduced by 55%) and improved CAI strength by 28%.

Agradecimientos

The authors thank Chomarat (Le Cheylard, France) for manufacturing the materials used in this study. We acknowledge the support of Dr. Imma Boada and her team (Graphics and Imaging Laboratory, University of Girona) for providing the software Starviewer, the 3D viewer used to render the tomographic slices. We also extend our appreciation to the FEDER-UE and the Spanish government through the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under the contract MAT2015-69491-C3-1-R. The first author is particularly grateful for the support received from the Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’ Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya through the pre-doctoral grant 2016FI_B_00551, co-funded by the Fondo Social Europeo (FSE).

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