Lateral Crushing Behaviors of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composites with Graphene Nanoparticles

The current study aims to perform an experimental investigation of the effects of graphene nanoplatelets on the lateral crushing behaviors of carbon fiber-reinforced composite pipes. The nanoparticles were incorporated into epoxy at three different weight percentages (0.1%, 0.25%, and 0.5%). The pipe samples manufactured by the wet filament winding technique were subjected to quasi-static lateral compression loadings. Failure modes were discussed to provide a full understanding of graphene’s impact on the fracture mechanisms of the composite pipes. According to the obtained results, nanoparticle addition had significant impacts on the crushing characteristics of the carbon/epoxy fiber-reinforced composite pipes. The maximum specific energy absorption of 3.09 J/g was achieved from the samples with 0.25% graphene. Additionally, the increases in the first peak and mean crushing load values were found as 10.4% and 33.3% by the addition of nanoparticles. However, an excessive amount of nanographene doping like 0.5 wt.% resulted in drastic decreases in crushing parameters such as initial peak load, mean crushing load, and energy absorptions. The specific energy absorption of samples with 0.5 wt.% graphene was observed as 2.63 J/g which was a 14.9% decrease compared to maximum values. This can be attributed to the formation of local stress concentrations as a result of agglomerations due to the non-homogeneous distribution of nanoparticles in higher amounts of incorporations. In conclusion, the study proved that the addition of graphene nanoplatelets in carbon/epoxy fiber-reinforced pipes can be effective and increase the material responses in engineering applications that may be subjected to lateral loads.