A comparative study on the interlaminar shear strength of carbon, glass, and Kevlar fabric/epoxy laminates filled with SiC particles

The present article investigates the interlaminar shear strength of the woven carbon, glass, and Kevlar fiber reinforced epoxy (CFRE, GFRE, and KFRE) composites filled with SiC particles. The work covers the samples preparation, testing, and analyzing. The samples were fabricated using the regular addition of the SiC particles as 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 wt% of the total weight of epoxy resin. Samples of the short beam shear test were cut using CNC machine. The experiments were conducted according to the ASTM-D-2344 standard. The fracture surfaces of the laminate samples were observed by scanning electron and optical microscopy. The major benefits of the current study are that the modification process by adding a certain amount of the SiC particles significantly enhanced the interlaminar shear strength of CFRE, GFRE, and KFRE composites as the comparison to the conventional ones.