Abstract
Carbon fiber provides opportunity to reduce weight in structural composites, including wind turbine blades, due to the material's superior specific stiffness and specific strength compared to alternatives. Despite these advantages, cost and compressive performance are considered weaknesses for carbon fiber products available today. Studies to produce low-cost carbon fiber alternatives, including the use of textile-derived precursor systems, have shown progress and merit through the DOE/ORNL low-cost carbon fiber initiatives. This work focuses on enabling increases in compressive strength through design of the carbon fiber geometry, applicable to both textile and conventional precursor systems, while also providing opportunities to reduce carbon fiber processing costs. Fiber-resin interface and fiber alignment are among the most frequently cited factors controlling composite compressive performance. However, it is believed that there is opportunity in traditionally unexplored routes to increasing compressive strength through alteration of the carbon fiber geometry by increasing the fiber area moment of inertia and/or the fiber perimeter and interfacial area. This paper presents initial results from manufacturing carbon fiber materials to assess the impacts of carbon fiber size on tested composite compressive performance with projected neutral or even beneficial impact on fiber and composite manufacturing economics. Carbon fiber systems with increasing size illustrate a favorable correlation for compressive performance greater than predicted from a micromechanical failure model. The manufacturing and mechanical test results support the hypothesis of this work that alterations to fiber geometry can be used to produce improvements of the compressive strength of carbon fiber reinforced polymers and provide incentive for related work in designing alternative shapes to further enhance compressive performance.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 112181 |
| Journal | Composites Part B: Engineering |
| Volume | 296 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 1 2025 |
Funding
This research has been funded by the Wind Energy Technologies Office within the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Carbon Fiber Material Design for Targeted Performance Enhancement project. The authors would like to also acknowledge the developmental materials supplied by 4XT, the ORNL CFTF, Dolan, and Kaltex, and support for that development from the Vehicles Technology and Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Offices of the Department of Energy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a multiprogram laboratory operated by UT-Battelle, LLC. under Contract No. DEAC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. This research has been funded by the Wind Energy Technologies Office within the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Carbon Fiber Material Design for Targeted Performance Enhancement project. The authors would like to also acknowledge the developmental materials supplied by 4XT, the ORNL CFTF, Dolan, and Kaltex, and support for that development from the Vehicles Technology and Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Offices of the Department of Energy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a multiprogram laboratory operated by UT-Battelle, LLC. under Contract No. DEAC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.
Keywords
- A. Carbon fiber
- Compressive strength
- D. Mechanical testing
- E. Fiber conversion processes