Role of formulation additives on the properties of thermoplastic polyether ester elastomer-based and carbon fabric-reinforced multilayer composites

Abstract

In this study, multilayer carbon fabric-reinforced composites (CFRC) were manufactured by compression molding technique with the combination of carbon fabric and thermoplastic polyether ester elastomer (TPEE) composites. The TPEE-based polymer layers were prepared as binary, ternary, and quaternary composites using carbon black (CB) or N-(β-aminoethyl)-γ-aminopropyl-trimethoxysilane (AEAP) modified carbon black (mCB), ethylene-glycidyl methacrylate copolymer (EGMA) and/or paraffin oil. The effects of formulation additives on multilayer CFRC were investigated in terms of their mechanical, electrical resistivity, electrically stimulated shape memory properties and morphologies. Tensile modulus of neat TPEE included multilayer CFRC increased slightly with the addition of both mCB and oil to TPEE. The highest impact strength of 112.2 kJ/m2 was obtained for TPEE-mCB-EGMA-Oil containing CFRC multilayer composites, which was 30% higher than CFRC with neat TPEE. All modified and reinforced CFRC exhibited higher electrical conductivities than neat TPEE containing CFRC. Electrically triggered bending test showed that combination of TPEE, mCB, EGMA and oil together with carbon fabric in multilayer structure revealed 80% shape recovery ratio within less than 2 min.