IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v10y2019i1d10.1038_s41467-019-11520-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integrating tough Antheraea pernyi silk and strong carbon fibres for impact-critical structural composites

Author

Listed:
  • Kang Yang

    (Beihang University)

  • Juan Guan

    (Beihang University
    Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering)

  • Keiji Numata

    (RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science)

  • Change Wu

    (Beihang University)

  • Sujun Wu

    (Beihang University)

  • Zhengzhong Shao

    (Fudan University)

  • Robert O. Ritchie

    (University of California)

Abstract

High stiffness and strength carbon fibres are commonly used to reinforce epoxy-resin composites. While wild Antheraea pernyi silk fibres exhibit high toughness originating from their α-helix/random coil conformation structures and their micro-fibre morphology, their insufficient strength and stiffness hinders them from being used in similar structural composites. In this work, we use interply hybridization of silk and carbon fibres to reinforce epoxy-matrix composites. With increased carbon fibre content, the quasi-static tensile/flexural stiffness and strength increases following the rule of mixtures while more silk fibre acts to increase ductility and impact strength. This results in a composite comprising equal volumes of carbon and silk fibres achieving an impact strength of 98 kJ m−2, which is twice that of purely carbon-fibre reinforced composites (44 kJ m−2). This work shows tough natural silk fibres and strong synthetic fibres can be successfully integrated into epoxy-resin composites for tailored mechanical properties.

Suggested Citation

  • Kang Yang & Juan Guan & Keiji Numata & Change Wu & Sujun Wu & Zhengzhong Shao & Robert O. Ritchie, 2019. "Integrating tough Antheraea pernyi silk and strong carbon fibres for impact-critical structural composites," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-11520-2
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11520-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11520-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-019-11520-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ziyu Ba & Hongyun Luo & Juan Guan & Jun Luo & Jiajia Gao & Sujun Wu & Robert O. Ritchie, 2023. "Robust flexural performance and fracture behavior of TiO2 decorated densified bamboo as sustainable structural materials," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-11520-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.