Mechanical and electromagnetic shielding properties of Al particle sandwich CFRP composites

CFRP composites are widely used in aerospace due to their excellent mechanical properties, however, due to the anisotropy of the individual plies, the electro magnetic interference(EMI) shielding efficiency(SE) for vertically polarized waves of the unidirectional fiber laminates is poor. In order to protect electronics within these equipments from increasingly severe electromagnetic interference, it is particularly important to enhance the electromagnetic shielding efficiency of the CFRP. In this paper, Al particles were introduced and a conductive network was constructed in the CFRP interlaminar region by condensing the Al particles on the prepreg surface. The effects of different Al particle contents on EMI SE and mechanical properties of composites were studied. With the increase of Al particle contents, the electrical conductivity and the EMI SE of CFRP composites increase. When the Al mass fraction in the resin is 33.3%, the in-plane conductivity of the composites increases by 3 orders of magnitude, the EMI SE of the Al particle sandwich CFRP composites is improved by more than 10 dB in the frequency range of 3-17 GHz. With the increase of Al particle contents, the interlaminar shear strength and bending strength of the composites increase first and then decrease. When the Al mass fraction in the resin is 33.3%, the interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) of the composites increases by 5.2% to 80.5 MPa, and when the Al mass fraction in the resin is 50%, the bending strength of the composites increases by 20% to 1441.0 MPa and the bending modulus increases by 10.2% to 101.83 GPa. It can be seen that the mechanical properties and electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of the Al particles sandwich CFRP composite can be improved simutaneously. It is a kind of structure electromagnetic shielding integrated composite with broad application prospects.