Multi-Functional Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composites for Fire Retardant Applications

Development of multifunctional flame retardant (FR) polymer composite was done. Flame retardant polymer composite was prepared by modifying diglycidylether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA) epoxy. Modification involved two types of FR. Reactive type FR used was phosphoric acid and additive type FR used was magnesium hydroxide. Composite was fabricated using resin infusion under flexible tooling (RIFT) process. Different FR epoxy samples were evaluated by compression test, UL 94. The carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite with attributes of flame retardancy were characterized using in-plane shear test, to estimate the structural properties, and UL-94 test, to estimate the fire performance. FR composite exhibited UL-94 rating of V-1 and a shear modulus of 9.7 GPa, which proved it to multifunctional.