Fracture and fatigue behaviour of carbon fibre composites with nanoparticle-sized fibres

Fibre composites with thermoset polymer matrices are widely used. However, thermosets are very brittle, which can limit the applications of fibre composites. In this work, silica nanoparticles (SNPs) were used to modify two fibre sizings to improve the toughness of carbon fibre composites. Mode I interlaminar fracture and fatigue crack growth tests were conducted on the composites made using the silica nanoparticle-sized fibres. There was no...