Cold Plasma Surface Treatments for GFRP Bonding

Cold plasma have found unique applications in the surface treatments of polymeric materials but few research has been developed on the treatment of composite materials. In this paper samples of Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymeric have been subjected to cold plasma surface treatment and glued to simulate structural joints. Aim is to improve the surface adhesion. An cold plasma generator working in flow gas (O 2, N 2) has been employed to obtain a localized surface treatments. The strength of double cantilever beam joints has been measured and a morphology fractures analysis of the surfaces has been done. The results show that the cold plasma with oxygen gas under a little time of treatment increase the admissible of project parameters. Morphological analysis permits to evidence different fracture modes to be correlate to the surface treatment parameters