Approaches to understand and predict the influence of rapid heat-up on degradation and strength of carbon fibre polymer matrix composites.

This study focuses on understanding and prediction of short-term thermal degradation of polymer matrix composites. One sided irradiation of two commercial composites (HexPly® 8552/IM7 and M18-1/G939) is carried out on specimens of various thickness (2, 4, 6 mm) at different heat fluxes (50 and 80 kW/m2) for various exposure times prior to ignition. The aim is to correlate the amount of the applied thermal energy with the heat damage and the residual mechanical strength. Among the two primary components of each matrix the epoxy resin is observed to degrade faster than the thermoplastic under thermal load, as measured by IR spectroscopy. A correlation is achieved between the interlaminar shear strengths and the relative amount of the residual matrix components. The interlaminar shear strengths and degradation processes are assessed in dependence of the applied energy per volume. The derived relationships and a chemometric analysis of IR spectra, can be used to rapidly estimate mechanical properties, as well as other properties of specimens with unknown thermal preload. Degradation processes are discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]