Carbonization behaviour of some polyimide resins reinforced with carbon fibers Original Research Article

It was shown that the low weight loss makes the polyimide resins based on acetyl derivatives of aromatic diamines a promising candidate for carbon–carbon composites. The weight loss of this polyimide resin can reach about 30% in the composite, which is 1.5 times lower than that of the phenol-formaldehyde resin. It is suggested that the lower weight loss of the matrix in carbon fiber reinforced polyimide is due to strong fiber–matrix interaction, which can result from cross-linking between the fiber surface and the matrix. On the other hand due to this strong fiber–matrix interaction carbon–carbon composites can undergo brittle failure with crack propagation normal to the fibers.