An Experimental Study of Fiberglass Composites Containing Metal Wire Joints

The U.S. Navy has been incorporating increasing amounts of composite materials during construction, especially in the areas of submarine sails and surface ship superstructures. The benefit of using composite material with metal wire layers imbedded is that these metal wire layers may be welded to the steel superstructure of a Naval Vessel resulting in maximum joint strength. Joining a composite structure to a metallic structure required the metalwire layers to be co-cured with composite layers using the Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM). The interface fracture strength was measured for Mode I fracture for various lay-up and interface conditions. The study includes metal-wire to composite, composite to composite, and metal-wire to metal-wire interfaces. Metal-wire layup orientations studied were 0 and 90 degrees with varying combinations. The study also examined the crack propagation from a composite to a metal/composite interface. Failure mode was studied by creating a finite element model in ANSYS 12.0. The results suggested that a metal-wire/composite laminate would be effective to connect a composite structure to a metallic structure.