Effects of the addition of carbon nanofibers on mechanical properties of woven glass/epoxy composites with different weave patterns

The harness and the weave style are among the most important properties of woven fabrics. Most of the previous studies utilized woven fabrics with specific harnesses to explore the effects of nanoparticles on woven composites. Therefore, an experimental study was conducted to examine the impact of three weave patterns, namely plain, 5-harness satin, and 8-harness satin, on the mechanical properties of woven composites under tensile and shear loads. Subsequently, the effect of applying carbon nanofibers (CNFs) to epoxy resin reinforced with woven glass fibers with various harnesses was studied. The experimental results were evaluated statistically, indicating that using CNFs differently affects composite properties with various fabric harnesses. The addition of 0.5 wt.% CNFs to woven composites with varied harnesses enhanced the tensile strength by 19.2%–22.9% and the tensile fracture strain by 12.9%–13.8%, respectively. However, the elastic tensile modulus of woven composites was not increased. A further increase in the CNFs weight fraction from 0.5 wt.% did not improve the tensile properties. The addition of 0.5 wt.%, 1.0 wt.% and 1.5 wt.% CNFs increased the shear strength up to 30.6% and the shear modulus up to 18.7%, respectively. The results showed that the addition of CNFs more significantly affected the shear than the tensile properties. It was also revealed that employing a proper weight fraction of CNFs and a proper fabric harness significantly improves the mechanical properties of woven composites. Finally, an empirical model was developed to predict the strength and elastic modulus of woven composites with different harnesses and CNF weight fractions.