Influence of Substrate Location on Mechanical Behaviour of Glass Fibre Composite Materials with Embedded Printed Electronics
Résumé
This study investigated the mechanical behaviour of glass fibre epoxy composites with
and without an embedded polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate used for printed
electronic applications, with the mechanical behaviour integrity studied under different
loading modes: three-point bending, tensile, and short-beam stress (SBS) tests. The main
objective of this study was to investigate the influence of the substrate location within
the laminate. Fracture profiles were observed by visual inspection during the mechanical
tests and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) after failure to identify differences in the
damage mechanisms and their propagation. Tensile tests indicated that embedding the
PET substrate did not affect the ultimate strength of the laminate, while the bending and
SBS tests indicated that the substrate integration reduced the bending strength and ILSS
by 10% and 50%, respectively, depending on the substrate location.