Experimental and computational analysis of structure-property relationship in carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites fabricated by selective laser sintering

Abstract A fundamental understanding of structure-property relationship of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites fabricated by selective laser sintering (SLS) is essential to provide guidance to improve the mechanical properties in this promising additive manufacturing process. In the present study, we propose a new computational framework to evaluate the mechanical behavior of SLSed CFRP based on the representative volume element (RVE) model. Firstly, a new voxel-based fiber packing algorithm is proposed with the three-dimensional fiber orientation tensor to describe the fiber distribution. The porosity generated in the manufacturing process is also considered by adding spherical voids in the matrix region. In order to remove the artificial stress concentration induced by the voxel-based algorithm, a python script is developed to regenerate the geometries of different phases with conforming mesh. Meanwhile, the constitutive models of different phases in SLSed CFRP, i.e., matrix, fiber and interface, are established according to the material characteristics. Next, the proposed computational framework of SLSed CFRP is validated by the X-ray computed tomography (XCT) measurements and tensile tests of a representative SLSed carbon fiber/polyamide 12 (CF/PA12) composite. The effects of fiber volume fraction and fiber orientation distribution on the mechanical behavior of SLSed CF/PA12 composite are further quantitatively explored and ranked with regards to their influence on stiffness and failure strength.