IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering

PAPER • OPEN ACCESS You may also like

- Evaluation of Different High Materials for
Numerical study to investigate the influence of In situ Growth of Carbon Nanotubes
Martin Keyn, Tillmann Adrian Krauss,
CNTs on delamination resistance in broken ply Andreas Kramer et al.

- Modelling the electrical behaviour of

carbon/epoxy composites carbon/epoxy composites and monitoring
changes in their microstructure during
oven and autoclave curing using electrical
To cite this article: Chukka Atchuta Rao et al 2022 IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 1248 012066 impedancemetry
M Mounkaila, S Sassi, A Hamadi et al.

- Effects of the shock duration on the

response of CFRP composite laminates
Elise Gay, Laurent Berthe, Michel Boustie
View the article online for updates and enhancements. et al.

This content was downloaded from IP address 202.65.173.16 on 06/03/2023 at 03:36

International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2022) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1248 (2022) 012066 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1248/1/012066

Numerical study to investigate the influence of CNTs on

delamination resistance in broken ply carbon/epoxy
composites

Chukka Atchuta Rao1, a, K S R Krishna Murthya and Debabrata Chakraborty a

a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, India

1
Email: raol9me351@iitg.ac.in

Abstract. In fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composite laminates subjected to low velocity
impact, one of the common mode of failure is ply breakage followed by interfacial
delamination at the site of ply break. Improving the delamination resistance at the interface is
therefore important and the present work examines quantitative understanding of how the
addition of CNTs to epoxy might enhance the resistance to such delamination at the interface.
A laminate made of plies with CNT-epoxy as the matrix and carbon fibre as the reinforcement
has been considered to be broken through the full width. A full three dimensional FE analysis
was carried out for such a carbon/CNT-epoxy laminate for different wt% of CNTs. Resistance
to delamination has been assessed by computing critical strain energy release rate (Gc) using
quadratic stress criterion (QSC) and virtual crack closure integral (VCCI). From the results, by
adding CNTs to epoxy, a significant improvement in the delamination resistance could be
observed. However, the improvement is till a certain specific CNT wt% and adding CNTs
further leads to a significant reduction in delamination resistance. In addition, the effect of
various factors such as fiber orientation of the adjacent continuous ply and resin layer
thickness on critical strain energy release rate (Gc) have been studied. The results show that Gc
also depends upon the fiber orientation of the adjacent ply and on the resin layer thickness. As
the resin layer thickness increases, a significant increase in Gc is observed.

1. Introduction
Due to the superior properties of carbon nanotubes, three phase CNT composites are gaining practical
importance. In such composites, CNTs are mixed with epoxy and are reinforced with fibres led to
enhanced strength and stiffness in general and interlaminar strengths in particular. In recent years, the
applications of CNTs in industries have increased because of their improved properties and are
discussed extensively by Ates et al. [1]. Dorigato et al. [2] conducted a number of experiments on fibre
reinforced polymer (FRP) composites and reported that adding nanoparticles to the epoxies led to
enhanced strength and stiffness. Some of the most common defects such as ply/fibre break, matrix
cracking, and delamination occur in FRP laminated composites and many a times, one or more ply
breaks due to impact loading. Despite the fact that a ply break does not lead to final fracture of the
laminate, high interlaminar stresses around the break may cause delamination initiation at the interface
of the adjacent continuous ply and broken ply. Therefore, enhancing the resistance to such
delamination is a major concern in the design and analysis of such laminate components and CNTs
might play a major role in this direction.

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution
of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1
International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2022) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1248 (2022) 012066 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1248/1/012066

There are several works reporting the influence of CNTs on the interlaminar and mechanical
properties of CNT reinforced polymer composites for different wt% of CNTs ranging from 0.1% to
5%. Yokozeki et al. [3] fabricated three-phase unidirectional CFRP laminate by adding 5 wt% cup-
stacked CNTs to epoxy, by conducting experiments, reported that GIc and GIIc increased by 98% and
30% respectively. Karapappas et al. [4] used carbon fibre epoxy prepregs and MWCNTs to fabricate
CFRP composites, experimental results confirm that the addition of 1 wt% and 5 wt% CNTs resulted
in an improvement of 60% in GIc and 75% in GIIc respectively. Sharma and Shukla [5] fabricated
carbon/CNT-epoxy composites by adding MWCNTs between 0 to 1.5 wt% to epoxy, and
experimental results confirm that interlaminar shear strength (ILSS), flexural modulus, and modulus of
elasticity were increased by 40%, 38%, and 51% respectively.
Many works have been published in the literature where delamination in composite laminates with
ply break has been studied using strength of materials approach and fracture mechanics approach. Tian
and Swanson [6] carried out a 3D finite element (FE) analysis of carbon/epoxy laminates with internal
cut fibres, computed strain energy release rate (SERR), and compared it with critical SERR to assess
delamination initiation. Wisnom [7] investigated the influence of ply thickness on SERR by
conducting a two-dimensional finite element analysis of a glass/ epoxy composite laminate with
broken central plies. Lu and Liu [8] introduced penny-shaped delamination at the center of the
laminated composites and calculated SERR components at the delamination front by carrying out a
three-dimensional finite element analysis. The objective of the present work is to study the
enhancement of delamination resistance by enriching epoxy with CNTs and also to study the effect of
adjacent intact ply orientation and resin layer thickness on delamination resistance at the interface.

2. Delamination modeling using FE analysis

Delamination is interlaminar damage in laminated composites, which may initiate either from free
edges or from the location of the ply break. For a clear insight into delamination onset and growth, the
study of interlaminar stresses at the delamination front is very important. At the interface, to estimate
the delamination initiation, there were two criteria such as the strength of materials based criteria and
criteria based on linear elastic fracture mechanics concepts. Figure 1 shows a carbon/CNT-epoxy
laminate having the broken central ply through the full width.

Figure 1. Details of broken ply laminate.

Stresses and displacements at the interface of the delamination front could be obtained by carrying
out a three dimensional FE analysis. Interlaminar stresses  xz ,  yz are responsible for delamination,
delamination initiation could be assessed using quadratic stress criterion (QSC) [9]. Similarly, by
computing SERR using VCCI, delamination initiation at the interface could be assessed.
In the current study, a carbon fibre reinforced CNT/epoxy laminated composite with broken ply at the
centre has been taken into consideration as shown in Figure 1 and the laminate has been subjected to

2
International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2022) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1248 (2022) 012066 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1248/1/012066

uniaxial loading. A full three-dimensional finite element analysis has been performed for evaluating
the interlaminar stresses, displacements, and components of SERR.
The laminated composite has been modeled with help of eight noded layered solid elements (SOLID
185 in ANSYS) [10]. When a ply breaks, the broken ply separates from the neighbouring ply for a
small length at the break, and this is included in the current FE model by considering a small
delaminated zone (0.1 mm) near the ply break. In addition, the interface between the neighbouring
continuous ply and broken ply is modeled in the FE model using a thin (0.01mm) resin (CNT-epoxy)
rich layer, through which delamination propagates.
In the finite element model, to avoid the interpenetration of delaminated layers, contact elements
having two nodes (CONTA 178 in ANSYS) [10] were used to connect the top and bottom nodes in the
small delaminated zone. The stresses and displacements were obtained, and using them the three
components of SERR could be computed using VCCI [11] as follows (Refer to Figure 2(a))
1 b /2 a
GI  lim 
a 0 2.a.b  b /2 0
 z (vt  vb ) dxdy (1)

1 b /2 a
GII  lim
a 0 2.a.b   b /2 0
 xz (ut  ub ) dxdy (2)

1 b /2 a
GIII  lim 
a 0 2.a.b  b /2 0
 yz ( wt  wb ) dxdy (3)

Here, a is the virtual crack extension length, b is the delamination width. At the interface,  z is
the interlaminar normal stress and  xz , yz are the interlaminar shear stresses. ub , vb , wb and ut , vt , wt
are the nodal displacements of the bottom surface and top surface along x, y and z directions
respectively. In the present work, a is considered as 0.001 mm. For a very small delamination
length, the total SERR could be evaluated as G  GI  GII  GIII and if G  Gc , delamination
initiates.

Figure 2(a). Computation of SERR using VCCI at Figure 2(b). Zoomed view of FE mesh near the ply
delamination front. break.

2.1. Material properties of the laminate

A three-phase composite laminate with a central broken ply is considered to be composed of carbon
fibre as the reinforcement (Vf = 0.6) and CNTs mixed with epoxy resin as the matrix. Different wt% of
CNTs viz. 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 1.5 in epoxy have been considered to investigate the effect of adding
CNTs on interfacial delamination resistance. Elastic properties of carbon/CNT-epoxy composite and
CNT-epoxy composite have been calculated using the equations of the rule of mixtures and Halpin-
Tsai equations [12] as can be seen in Table 1 [5].

3
International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2022) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1248 (2022) 012066 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1248/1/012066

Table 1 Elastic properties of CNT-epoxy and carbon/CNT-epoxy composites [5].

Matrix
Lamina (carbon fibre Vf = 0.6 + CNT-epoxy)
(CNT-epoxy)
Longitudinal Transverse Axial Axial
Elastic Shear
CNT wt % Poisson's elastic elastic Poisson's shear
modulus, modulus,
in epoxy ratio, ν modulus modulus ratio modulus
E (GPa) G (GPa)
E1 (GPa) E2 (GPa) ν12 G12 (GPa)
0.0% 3.10 0.35 1.15 98.92 7.59 0.284 2.75
0.25% 3.46 0.35 1.28 124.48 8.46 0.284 3.07
0.50% 3.83 0.35 1.42 128.94 9.34 0.284 3.39
1.00% 4.26 0.35 1.58 138.35 10.36 0.284 3.77
1.50% 4.41 0.35 1.63 142.58 10.72 0.284 3.89

3. Results and discussions

Three dimensional FE analyses were performed for 02 /  / 0  carbon/CNT-epoxy composite
s

laminate with the broken central ply and for different angles of intact plies (   0,30 , 45 , 60 and
90 ) and corresponding to different thicknesses ( tr = 0.005mm, 0.01mm, and 0.015mm) of resin
layer. However, before performing the FE analysis for a composite laminate with ply break,
convergence and validation of the FEA were performed to ensure that the SERR components were
correctly computed and that appropriate mesh refinement was determined.

3.1. Convergence and validation

For the validation of SERR computation from the current finite element analysis by VCCI, a double
cantilever beam (DCB) made with a unidirectional carbon fiber/epoxy composite with E1=135 GPa,
E2=10 GPa, G12=5 GPa and ν12=0.3 has been considered. The laminate is 150 mm long (along x), 25
mm wide (B, along z), 3 mm thick (2h, along y) and with a crack length (a) of 30 mm crack length and
is subjected to uniformly distributed load. FE analysis is performed and mode I SERR (GI) calculated
from the present FEA compared well with the analytical solution [13], with successive mesh
refinement as can be seen in Table 2.
Table 2 Validation of mode I SERR for a DCB specimen.
G I (N/mm)
Total elements in FE Reference analytical
FE solution (present)
mesh solution [13]
1800 0.029
7200 0.028
12600 0.0274 0.0237
18000 0.0256
25200 0.0237

3.2. Distribution of stresses around the ply break

Figure 2(b) shows the three dimensional finite element model of laminated composite with central
broken ply through the width. The stresses near the break are redistributed due to ply break, leading to
stress concentration. Thus, a refined mesh is used to compute SERR components near the break using
VCCI (Eqns 1-3). The laminate subjected to uniform axial loading has been simulated by using
following set of constraints. At x=0, in all the nodes, ux=uy=uz=0 and at x=L, all the nodes are
subjected to uniform axial load.

4
International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2022) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1248 (2022) 012066 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1248/1/012066

3.2.1. Axial stress in plies. Figure 3 shows axial stress (  x ) for both the broken ply and intact plies
of 02 /  / 0  carbon/CNT-epoxy laminate corresponding to   0 . Only one-half of the length of
s
the laminate length is shown due to the symmetry of stress distribution. It has been observed from
figure 3 that the axial stress in broken ply near the break is zero and thus the broken ply does not
participate in load bearing. Therefore, the intact plies experience a stress concentration that is highest
(SCF=1.4) in the adjacent ply. This indicates that the adjacent intact ply may fail, resulting in
overloading and failure of the remaining plies.

Figure 3 Variation of axial stress in plies along the length (   0 ).

3.2.2. Interlaminar stresses at the interface.  z ,  xz and  yz are the interlaminar stresses along the
interface of the broken and adjacent intact ply are shown in Figures 4(a), 4(b) and 4(c) respectively. At
the interface, it has been observed near the ply break that there is a sharp rise in magnitudes of
interlaminar stresses and those die down to zero away from the break. The laminate subjected to axial
loading considered here,  xz is far higher in comparison to  z and  yz , which indicates that the
shearing mode is the only the dominant mode of delamination and other modes of delamination are
insignificant.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 4. Interlaminar stresses variation (a)  z (b)  xz (c)  yz along the interface (neat resin,   0 , tr =
0.01mm).

3.2.3. Effect of orientation of adjacent intact ply and thickness of resin layer on interlaminar stresses.
Since  xz is the only significant interlaminar shear stress, variation of  xz along the interface of the
intact and broken plies for different adjacent intact ply angles and for different thicknesses of resin
layer has been investigated. Figure 5(a) shows the variation of  xz for different ply angles along the

5
International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2022) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1248 (2022) 012066 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1248/1/012066

interface and it has been observed that there is a sharp rise in the magnitude of  xz near the ply break
and decrease to zero away from the ply break. It could also be seen that  xz is maximum for  = 45
subjected to same axial loading. Figure 5(b) shows the variation of  xz for different thicknesses of
resin layer and it has been observed that as the resin layer thickness increases,  xz decreases, which
indicates that the thicker the resin layer, the lower the chances of delamination at the interface.

(a) (b)

Figure 5. Interlaminar shear stress (  xz ) variation along the interface (a) for different fibre angles (neat resin, t r
= 0.01mm) (b) for different resin layer thickness (neat resin,   0 ).

3.3. Strain energy release rate ahead of ply break

At the interface of continuous and broken plies, delamination front is considered as the crack front and
components of SERR ( GI , GII , GIII ) were calculated for laminates with different weight percentages
of CNTs in epoxy using VCCI. Following the trends of the interlaminar streeses at the interface, the
magnitudes of G I and GIII are observed to be insignificant small compared to GII . Critical SERR ( Gc )
for all the combinations have been computed using VCCI and quadratic stress criterion (QSC).

3.3.1. Influence of fibre orientation of adjacent intact ply on GII . To study the influence of fibre
orientation of neighbouring intact ply on GII , GII has been calculated for different fibre angle (  = 0
to 90 ) corresponding to the different wt% of CNTs. Figure 6(a) shows the variation of GII with
increasing fibre angle for different wt% of CNTs. It could be seen that as the fibre angle increases,
GII increases significantly up to  = 45 and beyond that the increase is not that much significant.

3.3.2. Influence of thickness of resin layer on GII . To study the effect of resin layer thickness on GII ,
GII has been calculated for different resin thicknesses ( tr = 0.005mm, 0.01mm, and 0.015mm)
corresponding to the different wt% of CNTs. Figure 6(b) shows the variation of GII with increasing
thickness of resin layer for different wt% of CNTs. It has been observed that as the resin layer
thickness increases, GII slightly increases and the increase is not significant.

6
International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2022) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1248 (2022) 012066 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1248/1/012066

(a) (b)

Figure 6. Variation of (a) GII with  of adjacent  lamina ( t r = 0.01mm) (b) GII with increasing resin layer
thickness (   0 ).

3.3.3. Influence of CNTs wt% in epoxy on Gc . Figure 7 shows the variation of critical SERR ( Gc )
with increase in CNT wt% in epoxy. It could be identified that as the percentage of CNTs increases,
the magnitude of Gc improves significantly, reaching maximum at 1% CNTs, which is 35% more
than the neat resin. However, when the CNTs wt% increases beyond 1%, Gc decreases again. Similar
results have been reported in the earlier experimental results [13].

Figure 7. Critical SERR ( Gc ) variation with increasing CNT wt% (   0 ).

3.3.4. Influence of fibre orientation of adjacent lamina on Gc . Figure 8 shows the effect of fibre
orientation of adjacent lamina on Gc of the laminate for different wt% of CNTs in epoxy. It could be
clearly seen that in all cases, as the fibre orientation changed from 0 to 90 , critical strain energy
release rate increases up to 60 , and beyond that, there has been a considerable reduction in Gc .

3.3.5. Influence of thickness of resin layer on Gc . Figure 9 indicates how Gc varies with increase in
thickness of resin layer for various CNT wt% in the epoxy. It could be seen that in all cases, as the

7
International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2022) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1248 (2022) 012066 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1248/1/012066

resin thickness increased from 0.005mm to 0.015mm, Gc increased by 43%, indicating that the
thicker the resin, the greater the delamination resistance at the interface of the neighbouring intact and
broken ply.

Figure 8. Variation of Gc with  of adjacent  Figure 9. Variation of Gc with increase in resin layer
lamina for different CNT wt% ( t r = 0.01mm). thickness for different CNT wt% (   0 ).

4. Conclusions
In this work, the effect of CNTs wt% in epoxy in resisting delamination at the interface of intact and
broken plies in a 02 /  / 0  carbon/CNT-epoxy laminate with broken central ply has been
s
investigated using 3D FE analysis. To study the effect of CNTs wt% in epoxy on delamination
resistance, interlaminar stresses and critical SERR have been calculated for different CNT weight
percentages. The important conclusions are drawn from numerical results as follows.
1. Addition of CNTs to epoxy resin improves the delamination resistance significantly at the
interface of intact and broken plies in FRP composite laminates.
2. Though increasing the CNTs wt% in an epoxy resin enhances the interfacial delamination
resistance, this improvement is limited to specific CNT wt% and thereafter it decreases. In the
present case, the limit is 1% and beyond that it reduces. Hence, it is critical to know the optimum
CNTs wt% to be mixed with epoxy.
3. The resin rich layer at the interface has a significant influence in resisting delamination initiation
and growth at the interface. The resistance to delamination initiation and growth increase with the
increase in thickness of the resin rich layer.
4. Critical SERR depends upon the fibre orientation of intact ply adjacent to broken plies. It is
minimum for a fibre angle of 0 and maximum for a fibre angle of 60 .

References
[1] Ates M, Eker AA, Eker B 2017 Carbon nanotube-based nanocomposites and their applications.
J Adhes Sci Technol. 31:1977–1997.
[2] Dorigato A, Pegoretti A, Bondioli F, Messori M 2010 Improving epoxy adhesives with zirconia
nanoparticles. Compos Interfaces. 17:873–892.
[3] Yokozeki T, Iwahori Y, Ishiwata S, Enomoto K 2007 Mechanical properties of CFRP laminates
manufactured from unidirectional prepregs using CSCNT-dispersed epoxy. Compos Part A
Appl Sci Manuf. 38:2121–2130.
[4] Karapappas P, Vavouliotis A, Tsotra P, Kostopoulos V 2009 Enhanced fracture properties of

8
International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE 2022) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1248 (2022) 012066 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1248/1/012066

carbon reinforced composites by the addition of multi-wall carbon nanotubes. J Compos

Mater. 43:977–985.
[5] Sharma K, Shukla M 2014 Three-phase carbon fiber amine functionalized carbon nanotubes
epoxy composite: Processing, characterization, and multiscale modeling. J Nano mater. 1–
10.
[6] Tian Z, Swanson SR 1991 The fracture behavior of carbon/epoxy laminates containing internal
cut fibers. J Compos Mater. 25:1427–1444.
[7] Wisnom MR 1992 On the increase in fracture energy with thickness in delamination of
unidirectional glass fibre-epoxy with cut central plies. J Reinf Plast Compos. 11:897–909.
[8] Lu X, Liu D 1991 Finite element analysis of strain energy release rate at delamination front. J
Reinf Plast Compos. 10:279–292.
[9] Brewer JC and Lagace PA 1988 Quadratic stress criterion for initiation of delamination. J
Compos Mater. 22:1141–1155.
[10] ANSYS R 2013 Academic research release 15.0. Help system. ANSYS Mechanical Element
Reference.
[11] Krueger R 2004 Virtual crack closure technique: History, approach, and applications. Appl
Mech Rev. 57:109–143.
[12] Affdl JH, Kardos JL 1976 The Halpin-Tsai Equations: a review. Polym Eng Sci. 16:344–352.
[13] Williams JG 1988 On the calculation of energy release rates for cracked laminates. Int J Fract.
36:101-119.
[14] Meguid SA, Sun Y 2004 On the tensile and shear strength of nano-reinforced composite
interfaces. Mater Des. 25:289–296.