MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF WET-LAID NONWOVEN MAT RECLAIMED CARBON FIBRE IN POLYMER COMPOSITE

Abstract

Reclaimed carbon fiber (rCF) has been produced on an industrial scale, especially nonwoven mat form. The nonwoven mat, however, required a large amount of waste and the process parameter as opposed to the lab-scale production. In this project, the nonwoven mat rCF in the lab-scale was prepared using a wet-laid method adapted from the papermaking technique before the physical properties of the mats been measured and observed via drapability and optical microscopy, respectively. The rCF mat was impregnated and molded with epoxy to produce composite at different plies of mats using a vacuum infusion process. Their mechanical properties were examined under flexural and impact tests. The scanning electron microscope used to elucidate and validate the morphological properties of the composite. Result data showed that the composite with higher rCF ply content have higher flexural and impact strength, with the maximum being a flexural strength of 51.26 MPa and impact strength of approximately 20.41 kJ/mm² with 3 plies nonwoven rCF mat. Morphological obtained from the failure mode showed a behavior of debonding and pulling out mode indicated a correlation impregnation between the rCF mat and epoxy. Hence, these findings conclude the fundamental of fabrication rCF mat in lab-scale showed there was a significant variation in mechanical properties at different plies and considered as a potential for alternative materials in composite applications.