POLYMER BASED COMPOSITE MATERIALS REINFORCED BY HIGH-STRENGTH CARBON FIBERS WEFT KNITTED FABRICS

Abstract The new weft knitted fabrics containing high-strength carbon fibers from PAN precursors for the reinforcing of polymer based composite materials (PCM) are proposed. The higher level of mechanical properties of PCM reinforced by the proposed carbon fiber filler is achieved by increasing the relative content of high-strength and high-modulus carbon fibers in weft knitted fabrics by the using of warp threads with the lowest linear density. The tensile strength of PCM reinforced by the proposed weft knitted fabrics containing up to 95% of high-strength carbon fibers Toho Tenax HTA 40 E13 3K (800 tex) with a polyamide thread (5х2 tex) was 1.1 GPa at a composite density of 1,6 g/cm3.