Abstract
Carbon fibers are widely used as a reinforcement in composite materials because of their high specific strength and modulus. Current trends toward the development of carbon fibers have been driven in two directions; ultrahigh tensile strength fiber with a fairly high strain to failure (~2%), and ultrahigh modulus fiber with high thermal conductivity. Today, a number of ultrahigh strength polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based (more than 6 GPa), and ultrahigh modulus pitch-based (more than 900 GPa) carbon fibers have been commercially available. In this study, the tensile strengths of PAN- and pitch-based carbon fibers have been investigated using a single filament tensile test at various gauge lengths ranging from 1 to 250 mm. Carbon fibers used in this study were ultrahigh strength PAN-based (T1000GB, IM600), a high strength PAN-based (T300), a high modulus PAN-based (M60JB), an ultrahigh modulus pitch-based (K13D), and a high ductility pitch-based (XN-05) carbon fibers. The statistical distributions of the tensile strength were characterized. It was found that the Weibull modulus and the average tensile strength increased with decreasing gauge length, a linear relation between the Weibull modulus, the average tensile strength and the gauge length was established on log–log scale. The results also clearly show that for PAN- and pitch-based carbon fibers, there is a linear relation between the Weibull modulus and the average tensile strength on log–log scale.
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In the previous investigation, the cross-sections of the T1000GB and IM600 PAN-based, and the K13D and XN-05 pitch-based fibers are almost circular. The cross-sections of the T300 and M60JB PAN-based fibers are distorted oval. The T1000GB, IM600, T300, and M60JB PAN-based, and the XN-05 pitch-based fibers have particulate or granular morphology. The K13D pitch-based fiber has a sheet-like microstructure. The fractured surfaces of the T1000GB, IM600, T300, and M60JB PAN-based, and the XN-05 pitch-based carbon fibers show the initiation of failure from surface defects and a rough, rather poorly defined granular texture. However, the K13D pitch-based fiber obscures the initiation of failure and observes the crystallite sheets are a result of pull out at failure [4, 5].
In this testing procedure, all carbon fiber filaments did not shatter and all specimens were recovered. However, a few (10–20%) samples failed in the edge of the holder or outside of the gauge section. Fractures that initiated inside the gauge section of a fiber and the samples that recovered the fracture surfaces were counted.
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Naito, K., Yang, JM., Tanaka, Y. et al. The effect of gauge length on tensile strength and Weibull modulus of polyacrylonitrile (PAN)- and pitch-based carbon fibers. J Mater Sci 47, 632–642 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-011-5832-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-011-5832-x