Charpy impact properties and numerical modeling of polycarbonate composites

Polycarbonate composites are widely spread in many industries, for product manufacturing. Although these materials are being used with high fidelity, their mechanical properties will highly depend on manufacturing processes, fiber orientations with respect to external loads, type of loading, environmental conditions, and so forth. This paper presents the Charpy impact behavior of three polycarbonate grades, in notched and unnotched conditions, as follows: Makrolon 2405—unreinforced polycarbonate, Makrolon 9415—polycarbonate with 10% glass fiber, and Makrolon 8035—polycarbonate with 30% glass fiber. The experimental measurements clearly demonstrated the effect of the fiber content on the impact strength of the material: as the fiber ratio increases, the impact strength decreases, exhibiting brittle behavior. The impact characterization of the notched specimens can facilitate the material selection for applications with higher geometrical complexities, where stress concentrators cannot be eliminated. In addition, the material models obtained through correlations could help increase simulation accuracy and speed up product development cycles.