Title: Plasma treatment of carbon fibres and glass-fibre-reinforced polyesters at atmospheric pressure for adhesion improvement

Authors: Yukihiro Kusano; Tom L. Andersen; Helmuth L. Toftegaard; Frank Leipold; Alexander Bardenshtein; Niels Krebs

Addresses: Department of Wind Energy, Section of Composites and Materials Mechanics, Technical University of Denmark, Risø Campus, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark ' Department of Wind Energy, Section of Composites and Materials Mechanics, Technical University of Denmark, Risø Campus, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark ' Department of Wind Energy, Section of Composites and Materials Mechanics, Technical University of Denmark, Risø Campus, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark ' Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark, Risø Campus, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark ' Danish Technological Institute, Gregersensvej 3, DK-2630 Taastrup, Denmark ' FORCE Technology, DK-2605 Brøndby, Denmark

Abstract: Atmospheric pressure plasma treatment is useful for adhesion improvement, because cleaning, roughening and addition of polar functional groups can be expected at the surfaces. Its possible applications in the wind energy industry include plasma treatment of fibres and fibre-reinforced polymer composites before assembling them to build wind turbine blades. In the present work, unsized carbon fibres are continuously treated using a dielectric barrier discharge plasma in helium at atmospheric pressure, and carbon fibre reinforced epoxy composite plates are manufactured for the mechanical test. The plasma treatment improved fracture toughness, indicating that adhesion between the fibres and the epoxy was enhanced by the treatment. In addition, glass-fibre-reinforced polyester plates are treated using a gliding arc and an ultrasound enhanced dielectric barrier discharge, improving the wettability and/or the adhesive strength with a vinylester resin.

Keywords: carbon fibres; glass fibre reinforced polymers; GFRP; epoxy; polyesters; vinylester; fracture resistance; fracture toughness; atmospheric pressure; dielectric barrier discharge; DBD; gliding arc; ultrasound; plasma treatment; adhesion improvement; wind energy; wind power; wind turbines; turbine blades; wettability; adhesive strength.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMATEI.2014.060319

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation, 2014 Vol.5 No.2, pp.122 - 137

Received: 04 Feb 2013
Accepted: 20 Jun 2013
Published online: 17 May 2014 *

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