The Effect of Polycaprolactone Nanofibers on the Dynamic and Impact Behavior of Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites

Abstract

In this article, the effect of polycaprolactone nanofibers on the dynamic behavior of glass fiber reinforced polymer composites is investigated. The vibratory behavior of composite beams in their pristine state (without any nano modification) and the same beams modified with polycaprolactone fibers is considered experimentally. The experimental results show that the incorporation of polycaprolactone nanofibers increases the damping; however, it does not significantly affect the natural frequencies. Additionally, the paper analyses the effect of polycaprolactone nanofibers on the impact behavior of glass fiber/epoxy composites. This has already been analyzed experimentally in a previous study. In this work, we developed a finite element model to simulate the impact behavior of such composite laminates. Our results confirm the conclusions done experimentally and prove that composites reinforced with polycaprolactone nanofibers are more resistant to damage and experience less damage when subjected to the same impact as the pristine composites. This study contributes to the knowledge about the dynamic behavior and the impact resistance of glass fiber reinforced polymer composites reinforced with polycaprolactone nanofibers. The findings of this study show that interleaving with polycaprolactone nanofibers can be used to control the vibrations and improve the impact damage resistance of structures made of composite mats as aircrafts or wind turbines.