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High performance poly ceramic hybrid composite featured with carbon fiber

  • Vagheesan Senthilkumar , Kasilingam Balasubramanian , Subramaniam Prabagaran , Tharmaraj Premkumar , Pichandi Chandrasekar , Venkatesh Rathinavelu ORCID logo EMAIL logo , Mohanavel Vinayagam , Sami Al Obaid and Saleh Hussein Salmen
Published/Copyright: July 31, 2025
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Journal of Polymer Engineering
From the journal Journal of Polymer Engineering

Abstract

Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) is a high-performance thermoplastic recognized for its outstanding mechanical characteristics, thermal stability, and chemical resistance. Besides, working with pure PEEK requires a lot of energy and can result in issues like thermal degradation if not handled carefully, which limits mechanical performance. The research intends to synthesize a high-performance PEEK hybrid nanocomposite layer series by PEEK/zirconia (ZrO2)/carbon fiber (CF)/PEEK with varied percentages of weight for ZrO2 as 0–5 wt% adhered with the epoxy medium through hand layup associated with advanced hot compression mould technique. The response of nano ZrO2 particles on microstructural and mechanical characteristics of PEEK/carbon fiber (CF)/PEEK hybrid composites is investigated. The PEEK/5 wt% ZrO2/CF-PEEK hybrid nanocomposite exploited superior mechanical performance rather than others, and microstructural transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis provides the clear fiber-filler matrix bonding, which favours better mechanical behaviour of the composite. Besides, the composite series of PEEK/5 wt% ZrO2/CF/PEEK is found to have optimum yield, tensile and flexural stress, and fracture toughness, with values 132.8 MPa, 182.5 MPa and 192.2 MPa, and 7.9 MPa0.5 and proposed to automotive parts applications.

Keywords: fracture toughness; polyether ether ketone; microstructure; yield and tensile strength; zirconia
Corresponding author: Venkatesh Rathinavelu, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Saveetha School of Engineering, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, SIMATS, Chennai, 602105, Tamil Nadu, India, E-mail:

Acknowledgements

This project was supported by Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2025R315), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

  1. Research ethics: Not applicable.

  2. Informed consent: Not applicable.

  3. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  4. Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.

  5. Conflict of interest: The authors state no conflict of interest.

  6. Research funding: None declared.

  7. Data availability: Not applicable.

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Received: 2024-12-31
Accepted: 2025-06-27
Published Online: 2025-07-31

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

https://doi.org/10.1515/polyeng-2024-0269
Keywords for this article
fracture toughness; polyether ether ketone; microstructure; yield and tensile strength; zirconia
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