The Role of Stacking order on Interlaminar Shear Strength of Woven Glass/Carbon Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Matrix Hybrid Composite developed by Resin Infusion Technique

Abstract

Fiber reinforced polymer hybrid composites have been widely used in aerospace, automobile, Marine and military applications due to their outstanding mechanical properties such as high specific strength and high stiffness. The study is made to investigate the effect of fiber stacking sequence on the mechanical properties of the hybrid laminates by reinforcing glass and carbon fibers into the epoxy matrix. The hybrid laminates were prepared by the resin infusion technique with a total of 8 plies, by varying the position of glass and carbon layers so as to obtain two different stacking sequences by keeping 00/900 orientation throughout the thickness of the laminate. In the present study bi-directional glass (631 GSM) and carbon (200 GSM) fibers were used to fabricate the laminates. The prepared laminates were cut as per ASTM D2344 to characterize the Interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) at the loading rate of 1 mm/min. The test results compared and found the stacking sequence where the carbon fibers at the extreme end show slightly superior to the laminate with glass fiber at the ends.