Investigation of Effects of Graphene Nanoplatelets Addition on Mechanical Properties of 7075-T6 Aluminium Matrix Hybrid Fibre Metal Laminates
Nurlan Gurbanov, Mustafa Babanli
Abstract
In this study, hybrid fibre metal laminates (FMLs) are produced using 1 mm thick 7075-T6 quality Al plate, unidirectional carbon fibre fabric and epoxy resin in 4/3 stacking order. The effect of adding 0.5% GNP to pure epoxy resin and epoxy resin on the mechanical properties of hybrid FMLs is investigated. As a result of the experiments, it is observed that adding 0.5% graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) to the epoxy resin increased the tensile strength of hybrid FMLs by about 2.42% and the three-point bending strength by about 5%. After mechanical tests, interface microstructures of FMLs are examined under digital microscope and it is observed that 0.5% GNP addition positively affected the delamination between metal and fibre reinforcement in FMLs.