Optimization of delamination resistance of vacuum infused glass laminate aluminum reinforced epoxy (GLARE) using various surface preparation techniques

Abstract

GLARE (glass laminate aluminum-reinforced epoxy) is aluminum-based material of fiber metal laminate (henceforth FML) that is often fabricated by expensive autoclave procedure. In this study, the process of Injected Molding (or also known as VARTM) was employed as a cost-effective alternative to produce GLARE. Several aluminum surface preparation procedures are applied to improve the interlaminar shear strength. A T3 temper 2024 aluminum alloy with 1*1 plain fabricated glass fabrics were used to make GLARE composites. GLARE consists of two aluminum sheet as external layers and glass fabric as internal layers. Four sets of aluminum sheets were prepared, one unanodized and three other anodized. Three different anodizing procedures (constant voltage mode, increasing voltage mode and decreasing voltage mode) have been adopted in this research. Two types of curing treatments were applied on VARTM fabricated specimens. According to ASTM D1876 T-peel test standard, the sets of prepared specimens have been tested to examine the adhesive bonding strength and fracture toughness of mode-I. The obtained results which include force-displacement curves, peak loads and fracture toughness were showed that a significant improvement for anodized specimens with all voltage modes. The first curing treatment offered better results than second curing treatment. The best improvement was obtained from anodized specimen with decreasing voltage mode cured by the first treatment which reaches to six times the results obtained from unanodized specimen. The delamination behavior for this specimen was verified numerically.