"Reliability of Recycled Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (rCFRPs) for Sustainable High-Volume Composites" 

Morgan Chamberlain, MSE PhD Candidate 

Advisor: Professor Jan-Anders Mansson

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Abstract:

The high performance and lightweighting advantages of carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites (CFRPs) have become integral within industries such as aerospace, automotive, and sporting goods. However, the growing demand for CFRPs is met with an equally pressing need for sustainable alternatives to the harsh environmental impact that virgin carbon fiber (vCF) manufacturing entails.  Additionally, the upcoming end of service life for thousands of aircraft that were manufactured at the forefront of CFRP technology will provide an additional 196,000 tons of carbon fiber waste by 2025, compared to the average 94,000 tons that is already landfilled annually. Hence there is a considerable need to bring recycled carbon fiber reinforced polymers (rCFRPs) into high-volume composites manufacturing as a sustainable alternative to landfill disposal of CFRP waste. This review analyzes the development of carbon fiber recycling technologies, as well as the more recent progress in manufacturing with the recycled material. Challenges are presented that currently hinder the scalability of rCFRPs at high volumes, including fiber surface defects and variability in length retention. Despite the difficulties that these complexities introduce, recycled carbon fiber (rCF) has shown to have excellent retention of mechanical properties, conditional on the optimization of the recycling process. Hence additional research is needed to improve rCFRP processing and assess the reliability of rCFRP structures. The final portion of this work analyzes how the Weibull distribution function can address these gaps by providing a statistical analysis of the mechanical reliability of recycled materials. In this context, understanding the complexity of the current state of recycled carbon fiber, and the difficulties in manufacturability that come with its many forms, is paramount in advancing processing technologies and broadening applications of rCFRPs.