Carbon-fibre composites with graphene filler for enhanced properties

Paper i proceeding, 2019

Carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) is often used in applications where lightweight design is essential. The material however suffers from inherent drawbacks such as high brittleness, low electrical conductivity. This Swedish-Brazilian collaboration combines experimental studies with modelling and simulation to investigate the improvement of the CFRP material properties after addition of graphene. Graphene exhibits excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, barrier properties, unique strength which makes it an optimal additive.

In this industrial-driven project, the electrical percolation threshold is studied and the strength of the reinforced polymer around the threshold value is investigated. The improvement is dependent on dispersion techniques and the grade of exfoliation of graphene. This has been shown both experimentally and from the modeling.