Original Paper(Vol.57 No.5 pp.436-441)

Development and Mechanical Properties of CFRP FW Pipe Joint Method with Enlacement of Exposed Fibers

Goichi BENCKouhei SUMIKURA and Kazuha MIURA

Abstract:This paper proposes two new joining methods of CFRP pipes without both of a mechanical joint and an adhesive joint. In the two joining methods, the some region of resin is removed from the edge of CFRP pipe in order to obtain the exposed carbon fibers. In the first method, the exposed fibers are divided to two bundles and they are wounded perpendicularly to the center of another pipe. In the second method, two CFRP pipes having more ten bundles of exposed fibers at their edges are faced to each other. Then, the bundles in one pipe are enlaced to the bundles of another pipe with a pair and carbon roving is wound around those enlaced bundles. After resin is impregnated into the enlaced parts of two methods and is stiffened under room temperature, the CFRP pipes jointed perpendicularly or in series are obtained. These joints are called as T-style joint and I-style joint, respectively. The manufacturing processes of the T-style and I-style joints are explained here and their mechanical strengths are evaluated in the tensile and bending tests The FEM analyses are executed and are compared with the results of experiments.

Key Words:CFRP, FW pipe, Joint, Experiment, Tensile test, Bending test, FEM