Tensile and impact properties of thermoplastic fibre hybrid composites based on air textured commingling hybrid yarns composed of carbon/aramid/polyamide 6 and carbon/glass/polyamide 6 filament yarns

This paper reports a comparison of tensile and impact properties between carbon/aramid and carbon/glass fibres reinforced unidirectional thermoplastic hybrid composites. For this purpose, different hybrid composites were produced using commingled hybrid yarns of carbon/aramid/polyamide 6 filament yarns and carbon/glass/polyamide 6 filament yarns with a defined mixing ratio based on air texturing technology. The results show that the density and specific Youngs’ modulus of the composites changes linearly with the proportion of carbon/glass and carbon/aramid fibre in hybrid composites. The specific Young’s modulus decreases linearly with decreasing carbon fibre content in the hybrid composites. On the other hand, the specific tensile strength does not change linearly according to the rule of mixture and a negative hybridization effect can be observerd for both types of hybrid composites. Furthermore, the combination of carbon/aramid and carbon/glass fibres can increase the impact strength by approximately 204% and 218%, respectively, compared to the composite reinforced by CF only. Although the specific tensile strength and specific impact strength of carbon/aramid reinforced hybrid composites are higher than those of CF/GF hybrid composites due to the lower density of carbon/glass hybrid composites, the potential impact strength achievable in hybrid composites is higher with the carbon/glass combination than with the carbon/aramid combination.