Experimental and Numerical Studies on the Effect of Hollow Glass Fiber Presence and Orientation on the Tensile Behavior of Epoxy/Glass Fiber Composite

In recent years, numerous investigations have been conducted on self-healing process using vascular network in composites. Since the vascular network in the composites leads to a decrease in virgin tensile properties, it is important to determine the optimal design of the vascular network in order to achieve minimum tensile properties loss. In this research, experimental and numerical studies on the effect of hollow glass fiber (HGF) presence and orientation on tensile behavior in epoxy/glass fiber composite are carried out. The orientations of HGFs were selected at three levels of 0, 45 and 90°, and the distance of HGFs was kept at 200 μm. The experimental results indicated that the presence of blank HGFs in composite lowered the tensile strength. The lowest decrease in tensile strength was observed in the composite containing HGF at angle of 45°. The presence and failure of HGFs in composite specimens were studied using scanning electron microscopy. Next, three-dimensional simulations of composite containing vascular HGF were performed using ABAQUS software and representative volume element (RVE). To simulate the interface of HGFs and epoxy matrix, a combination of cohesive zone and Columb’s friction models was used. A good agreement between FEM and experimental results for tensile strength of different specimens was observed. Next, the healing performance for composite containing self-healing HGFs at angle of 45° was investigated.