Development of self-healing carbon fiber reinforced polymer matrix composite

The main purpose of this doctoral thesis is to develop a three-dimensional self-healing carbon fiber reinforced composite material by applying the stitching process with EMAA (poly (ethylene-methacrylic acid)), EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate) and ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) filaments. For this purpose, filaments with diameters of 0.6, 0.8 mm and 1 mm were produced from EMAA, EVA and ABS thermoplastic polymers. Then, carbon fiber prepreg was stitched with these filaments and then composite production was carried out by compression molding method. The mechanical properties of the produced composites were made by tensile, bending and Mod-I interlayer fracture toughness tests, structural analysis by FT-IR analysis and morphological analysis by optical microscope and scanning electron microscope. In addition, the self-healing efficiency of the composites was calculated. In this thesis, the structure and importance of fiber reinforced composite materials, the production methods of carbon fiber composite materials and the effect of stitching process on composite materials are mentioned. In addition, the structure, process parameters and types of self-healing polymers were examined in detail. When the Mode-I interlayer test results were examined, it was observed that the fracture toughness increased as the diameter of the filaments increased in the stitching process. The highest healing efficiency was obtained in EMAA06 (189%), EMAA08 (141%) and EMAA1 (124%) samples. In addition, the healing efficiency of EVA06 (133%), EVA08 (115%) and EVA1 (110%) samples was also achieved. However, considering the results obtained in ABS06 (-53%), ABS08 (-64%) and ABS1 (-67%) samples, it was concluded that the healing did not occur with ABS filaments.