NEW EVALUATION TECHNIQUE OF INTERFACIAL PROPERTIES IN GFRP

A new method was proposed to evaluate the mechanical properties at the interface between the fibres and the matrix in composites using an embedded single fibre coupon test. A mechanical parameter at the interface (called the interfacial transmissibility, kappa) was derived from the fibre strength and the apparent stress of the fibre immediately before the first fracture of embedded fibre, sigma(fa), This parameter indicated the degree of the mechanical transmission from the matrix to the fibre through the interface. This avoided some complicated problems such as the stress distribution along fibre fragments and the critical fragment state in a typical single-fibre test. This new method was tried to determine the kappa-values for a fibre glass/epoxy resin with different amounts of a coupling agent at the interface. In order to measure the stress at the first fracture, the fracture process was monitored with a video camera during the single fibre test. The stress values at the first fracture for many coupons were analysed as a function of the three-parameter Weibull distribution. The resulting average stress and its coefficient of variation indicated that the reliability of the measurement for the stress at the first fracture was not less than that obtained by the usual single-fibre test. The change of interfacial transmissibility with amount of the coupling agent revealed the existence of an optimal interface.