Microwave Absorption and Mechanical Properties of Short-cutted Carbon Fiber/glass Fiber Hybrid Veil Reinforced Epoxy Composites

Abstract

This work aims at investigating the microwave absorption and mechanical properties of short-cutted carbon fiber/glass fiber hybrid veil reinforced epoxy composites. The short-cutted carbon fibers (CFs)/glass fibers (GFs) hybrid veil were prepared by papermaking technology, and composites liquid molding was employed to manufacture CFs/GFs hybrid epoxy composites. The microstructure, microwave absorbing properties and mechanical properties of the hybrid epoxy composites were studied by using SEM, vector network analyzer and universal material testing, respectively. The reflection coefficient of the composites were calculated by the measured complex permittivity and permeability in the X-band (8.2–12.4 GHz) range. The optimum microwave absorption properties can be obtained when the content of CFs in the hybrid veil is 6 wt% and the thickness of the composites is 2 mm, the minimum reflection coefficient of -31.8 dB and the effective absorption bandwidth is 2.1 GHz, which is ascribed to benefitting impedance matching characteristic and dielectric loss of the carbon fiber. Simultaneously the tensile strength and modulus can achieve 104.0 and 2.98 GPa, demonstrating that the CFs/GFs hybrid epoxy composites can be a promising candidate of microwave absorbing materials with high mechanical properties.

Keywords

microwave absorption / fiber reinforced composites / papermaking / carbon fiber

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