Vibratory behaviour of glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) interleaved with nylon nanofibers

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the inclusion of nylon nanofibers on the global dynamic behaviour of GFRP composite laminates. The vibration behaviour of GFRP composites reinforced with nylon nano-fibres is considered experimentally and numerically using a finite element model. The present analysis of clamped-clamped beams investigates the natural frequencies, the damping and the stiffness of virgin and nano-interleaved composite laminates. The numerical modelling uses ANSYS Workbench 16.2. Experimental and numerical results showed a significant effect of the nylon nanofibers on the dynamic behaviour of the composites. Nano-modified composites demonstrated a consistent increase in the damping ratio and inter-laminar strength. However, the variation in natural frequencies and stiffness due to the nanofibers was very small. This study contributes to the knowledge about the macro dynamic properties of nylon interleaved GFRP composites. It demonstrates that a simple FE model can be used to accurately predict the dynamic behaviour of such nano-composites. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.