Experimental evaluation of Coefficient of Thermal Expansion of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer tube

Abstract

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer is used in structural application due to its unique characteristics like high strength to weight ratio, high stiffness, low conductivity and negative or near zero achievable coefficient of thermal expansion. In applications where structural components are subjected to wide range of temperature changes, deflection of members due to thermal effect is unavoidable. Specifically truss structures need to be designed in such a way that overall deflection of structural member between end connections is nearly zero. Most metallic materials expands with increase in temperature and hence have positive CTE. To compensate this positive deflection of metallic end connection, struts made of carbon fiber reinforced polymer are desired to have negative CTE. In this paper, experimental evaluation of CTE is presented for two different test specimens. Deformation of tube with respect to temperature changes is measured and based that CTE is calculated. Fiber material properties and laminate layup definition have significant effect on overall CTE of tube specimen.