Abstract
Recently the fiber reinforced plastics (FRP) consisting of carbon and aramid fibers have come to be used as structure components of spaceships etc. From the viewpoint of mechanical properties such as elastic modulus, tensile strength and ultimate strain, each of these fibers has its own advantages and disadvantages, e. g. carbon fibers have high elastic modulus and high tensile strength but low ultimate strain, and aramid fibers have high ultimate strain. By combining fibers of different types, hybrid FRP having specially required mechanical properties can be obtained.
Meanwhile the mechanical behavior of matrix resin of FRP changes generally with time and temperature, that is, viscoelastic behavior. Therefore, it can be also considered that the fracture behavior of hybrid FRP changes with time and temperature remarkably.
In this paper, a materials design guideline of hybrid FRP is reviewed from the viewpoint of laminate constitution and viscoelastic behavior of matrix resin based on the research works of authors about the mechanical behavior of carbon/aramid hybrid unidirectional FRP laminates.
