Improving the fracture toughness, electrical conductivity and electro‐thermal performance of hybrid glass/carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites with surface‐sulfonated polypropylene fabrics

Abstract Hybrid glass/carbon fiber (GCF) reinforced polymer composites are one of advanced composites with reduced cost, desired mechanical properties and special electrification performance. In the work, surface‐modified polypropylene (PP) non‐woven fabric was used as the interleaf for toughening these composites. The effects of the surface‐sulfonated PP fabric (PP/S) interleaves on various mechanical properties of the GCF reinforced epoxy (GCF/EP) composites were investigated firstly, including the mode II interlaminar fracture toughness and flexural strength. Comparing to the blank control sample, the G_IIC of the hybrid composites interleaved with the sulfonated PP fabric was increased evidently, as well as its flexural strength. These demonstrate the great interleaving effect of PP/S fabric on the GCF/EP laminated composites. Moreover, the heterogeneous electrically conductive behavior and electro‐thermal effect of GCF/EP interleaved with and without PP/S were studied. Interestingly, comparing to the control sample, the conductivity of the interleaved GCF/EP composites increased in both two in‐plane direction. Due to the hybrid character of the plain woven GCF fabric, both the temperature increase rate and the equilibrium temperature of the GCF/EP composites were much larger than that of pure carbon fabric reinforced composites under the same electrification condition. Highlights Polypropylene fabric grafted with sulfonate group (PP/S) was fabricated. The tensile property of fabric almost unchanged after the sulfonation reaction. PP/S was more effective in toughening glass/carbon fiber/epoxy composite (GCF). PP/S increased the conductivity in in‐plane directions of the hybrid composites. GCF/EP displayed superior electro heating effect to CF/EP.