POLYMER COMPOSITES, cilt.43, sa.11, ss.8529-8544, 2022 (SCI-Expanded)
Composite structures have become one of the most preferred materials in the automotive industry by being improved day by day with their high strength per weight performance as well as their lightness. Natural fiber reinforced composite structures have an important share among all composite forms with recent developments. In this study, composite products in which epoxy resin is the matrix element with different stacking orders were produced by vacuum assisted resin transfer method. Basalt fabric was hybridized with carbon fabric and aramid fabric and the effect of this hybridization on thermal properties, mechanical properties, and morphological effects were examined. The mechanical test results indicated the tensile strength of the basalt/carbon hybrid configuration composite structure gave %40.18 better results than the basalt/aramid hybrid configuration structure. In terms of microhardness, in basalt/carbon hybrid configuration %22.34 better results were obtained in comparison with basalt/aramid hybrid configuration. Moreover, thermal analysis results displayed hybrid samples increased the combustion initiation temperature compared to homogeneous samples. In addition, the dominance of carbon fabrics was observed in the determination of cold crystallization temperature in hybrid samples, while basalt materials were predominant in melting temperature. Results of the article displayed that the carbon fiber hybridization to basalt fabric will greatly improve the deformation resistance and heat resistance of the materials compared to the aramid fabric hybridization process.