Notes on Some Properties of Fiber Reinforced Plastics

Abstract

The author has been working for Hitachi, one of the leading manufacturers of electrical machinery in Japan. He specializes in electrical insulation. Insulation systems are typically composed of resins and reinforcements, which are glass fibers, mica flakes, inorganic fillers, organic fibers, etc. Nowadays, insulation systems are being expected to withstand severer stresses, mechanical as well as electrical, than before. The author, as an insulation systems designer, has experienced several chances to estimate mechanical properties of reinforced plastics, that is, mica flake reinforcement theory, interlaminar shearing test methods, tensile properties and thermal contraction at cryogenic temperature,　glass/resin interface, etc. The author says that he has given up his investigation halfway,　since, he says, he does not specialize in mechanical material systems engineering. In this paper are described some notes on mechanical properties of some FRPs, which he is expecting some mechanical researchers should investigate further.