Dynamic-mechanical properties study of an aeronautical CFRP composite with embedded shape memory alloy wires

Abstract

This paper is in an experimental study of the thermomechanical properties behavior of an active composite obtained by introducing different volumetric fractions of NiTi shape memory alloy wires into a reinforced carbon fiber polymer (CFRP) matrix. For this study, an initial analysis of an aeronautic CFRP pre-preg with different angle positions of carbon fibers was performed verifying the elastic modulus in order to determinate the more adequate matrix for introducing NiTi SMA wires to obtain active composites. It was found that the CFRP aligned with the carbon fibers at 15º presents with a good choice for obtaining active composite, being used to manufacture CFRP/NiTi samples. The samples had their activation potential confirmed by the change in elastic modulus with increasing temperature using the Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) technique. By obtained results, we verified the activation ability of the CFRP/NiTi composite, which show positive variation of elastic modulus when heated above transformation temperatures of the NiTi wires.

Keywords:
active composites; CFRP; shape memory alloys; dynamic-mechanical analysis