Manufacturing and characterisation of hybrid spun yarn thermoset composites from recycled carbon fibres

This paper presents the results of a research to remanufacture continuous yarn from recycled carbon fibres (rCFs) of 60-80 mm in length by employing viscose staple fibre yarn, E-glass fibre and virgin CFs in a friction spinning process, which is subsequently used to produce thermoset composites through vacuum infusion and hand lay-up techniques. It has been found that compared to the randomly aligned rCF mats, the rCF yarn enhances the fibre volume fraction and tensile strength by 30% and 118%, respectively. Using longer rCFs of 80 mm in length at higher spinning speed of 690rpm enhance composite tensile strength by 15%. These results demonstrate a viable and scaleup method of remanufacturing rCFs for structural composite applications with good performance.