Experimental data on carbon fibre reinforced polyamide-6 composite (CF60/PA-6) under longitudinal and transverse compression loading

To meet emission standards and increase vehicle performance, the automotive industry is pushed to the development of lightweight structures, incorporating carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRPs). This data set has been produced as part of research within the field of modelling and analysing the strain rate-dependent compressive behaviour of CFRP structures. An objective is, to contribute to the understanding of strain rate sensitivity in carbon fibre/polyamide composites under longitudinal and transverse compression. Mechanical properties such as compressive failure strength and strain, chord moduli, yield strength and strain are evaluated. The results of the compression tests show that the composite is strain rate-dependent. Compression strength and failure strain increases with 51.2% and 61.1% respectively for the longitudinally tested specimen over a testing speed range of 2 mm/min to 1m/s. Similarly, the yield stress of the transverse tested specimen increases by +114.5%. I. Materials and specimen preparation The material consists of a polyamide-6 (nylon) matrix system reinforced with carbon fibre, stated by the manufacturer to result in a composite with a fibre volume percentage of 49%. The material is commercially available under the brand name: BASF Ultratape B3WC12 UD02. An ultrasonic hand welding device is used to adhere the tapes to each other and form laminates of [0◦]16, from which coupons with specified sizes were manufactured. Precedently, the laminates went through a process of pre-consolidation by belt press, water jet cutting and final consolidation in a hot-press and compression mould at research institute Neue Materialien Bayreuth (NMB). The materials are conditioned prior to testing according to DIN EN ISO 1110. Also, a stochastic pattern grey-scale pattern was created on the specimen surface, acting as carrier fot the deformation information, as required to perform Digital Image Correlation (DIC). II. Experimental set-up Within the range of 2 mm/min to 1m/s, compression tests were performed using a servo-hydraulic testing machine of type Instron VHS 160. Load-displacement monitoring is performed using an 1-component Kistler load cell of type 9051A, located at the bottom of a self-developed compression fixture (Schmack et al. Compos. Struct. 2018, 189, 256-262). High-speed photography is performed using two Photron FASTCAM SA-X high speed cameras, with maximum frame rate set at 45000 fps. DIC software, ARAMIS from Gesellschaft für optische Messtechnik (GOM) and Photron Fastcam Viewer software are used to process the information gathered