Effect of Inorganic Filler on Carbon-carbon Composites to Enhance Their Surface Free Energy and Ilss

Carbon fiber-reinforced carbon matrix composites (carbon-carbon composites) are new emerging materials with potential applications as high-temperature structural materials for the space and aeronautic industry [ 1 ]. Many important applications of general composites require that they link fiber-matrix interface due to the interface is the composite's weak link. At the interface, where two vastly different materials meet, the physical and mechanical properties change abruptly. Furthermore, the two materials are held together only by secondary (i.e., noncovalent) interactions. The continuous net of chemical bonds that exists within the material on either side of the interface does not exist across the interface. The discontinuity in physical and mechanical properties, as well as the interruption in molecular connectivity, makes the interface in an easy locus of failure in the composite [2]. The objective of the present work is to provide an understanding of the effects of inorganic fillers on the fiber-matrix interface of the carbon-carbon composites, and consequently their properties describe two viewpoint: surface free energy by contact angle measurements, and interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) by short-beam test.