Effect of carbon fibres on polymer network formation

Carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites are used in a wide variety of applications that take advantage of their mechanical, thermal and electrical properties, for example, “light weighting” aircraft and automobiles to reduce their energy consumption and emissions. There are further outstanding opportunities for use of carbon fibre composites in a range of high performance advanced materials, but to realise them will require technology advancement that will be enabled by this project.

We will use molecular dynamics simulations to understand how the interaction between carbon fibres and polymer can influence the properties of the resulting composite. This project aims to model the curing process near the fibre interface and investigate how the fibre affects the network. As well as enabling the optimisation of the performance properties of composites, the intent of the project is to provide direction on how to engineer fibre surfaces and polymers for high performance advanced materials.

For more information about the project contact Dr Karen Johnston (karen.johnston@strath.ac.uk), Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Strathclyde.

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