Journal of Science  and Technology of Composites

Journal of Science and Technology of Composites

Assessing the mechanical behaviour of hybrid electrospun polyurethane-glass fibers/epoxy composite under the tensile and flexural loadings

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran.
10.22068/jstc.2026.2094283.1965
Abstract
In this research work, the effect of adding electrospun polyurethane fibers on the mechanical properties of epoxy/glass fiber composites was investigated. For this purpose, composites containing different layers of polyurethane fibers (0, 1, 2, 3, and 5) and 4 layers of glass fibers were fabricated in a hybrid manner with symmetric layups. Then, their mechanical properties were evaluated under tensile and flexural loadings. Under tensile loading, the composite without electrospun fibers exhibited the highest tensile strength and elastic modulus, while the addition of one layer of electrospun polyurethane fibers resulted in 4.5% and 32.4% reductions in these properties, respectively, compared with the composite without electrospun fibers. In contrast, the addition of one layer of electrospun fibers resulted in an 82% increase in absorbed energy, from 4.61 × 10³ kJ/m³ to 8.39 × 10³ kJ/m³. Moreover, the highest fracture strain, equal to 0.051 mm/mm, was obtained in the composite containing 5 layers of electrospun fibers, which showed a 96.2% increase compared with the value of 0.026 mm/mm for the composite without electrospun fibers. Under flexural loading, the highest flexural strength was obtained in the composite containing 2 layers of electrospun fibers, with a value of 262 MPa, which represented a 74.7% increase compared with the value of 150 MPa for the composite without electrospun fibers. Furthermore, the flexural modulus increased with increasing number of electrospun fiber layers, from 11.19 GPa in the composite without electrospun fibers to 18.72 GPa in the specimen containing 5 layers, representing a 67.3% increase.
Keywords
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