The Mechanical Property Difference Depending on the Fabrication Process in Basalt Fiber Reinforced Composites

In these days, composite materials are well known for their excellent specific strength and are widely used in the aerospace, automobile and other industries such as wind turbine blade. The purpose of this study is to determine the correct estimation of the mechanical property between epoxy resin and basalt fiber as the composites and its validity has been tested with the alternative materials of the glass fiber reinforced composites for ballast pipe. Moreover, this work evaluated the mechanical properties according to the various manufacturing processes such as Hand Lay-up, VaRTM, and Vacuum Bag process of fiber reinforced composites and the fractured surfaces of basalt and glass fiber reinforced composites were also evaluated. The test result showed that no significant differences in tensile strength, and compression strength were found between basalt and glass fiber reinforced composites. However, the short beam strength of the basalt fiber reinforced composites was higher than those of the glass fiber reinforced composites in the case of the Vacuum Bag process. In addition, this result has been confirmed that the strength of the Vacuum Bag process was excellent compared to others manufacturing process.