Zhong Wei Zhang

• Doctor of Engineering
• Associate Professor at Army Engineering University of PLA

The shear‐thickening gel (STG) is introduced as a toughening agent into the epoxy resin (EP) to improve the toughness and impact resistance of the EP without significantly increasing its viscosity. By utilizing the unique BO dynamic bonds present in STG, the EP/STG composite exhibits remarkable toughness at low strain rates due to the gradual dise...

The physical-chemical method with plasma treatment and polypyrrole grafting was used to improve the low velocity impact resistance of the ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) fiber/epoxy laminates. The experimental impact force-time curves and impact force-central displacement curves were recorded. The microscopic void distribution of...

This paper investigates the impact of hybrid fiber structures on the ballistic performance of columnar ceramic/interlayer hybrid fiber composites. Three hybrid fiber composites and one single fiber‐component composite were fabricated. The accuracy of the numerical model was validated through quantitative analysis of matching micro‐CT images with si...

Open-section composite profiles are often used as columns in civil engineering structures. Their thin-walled nature makes these sections prone to buckling phenomena when loaded in compression. This paper presents a study on the axial compressive performances and failure behavior of channel-section CFRP/Al laminate columns with two different stackin...

The influences of Mg²⁺ and Ca²⁺ on the short-term (1800 s) corrosion behavior of X100 pipeline steel were investigated in a sodium chloride (NaCl) solution saturated with CO2. Either Ca²⁺ or Mg²⁺ in the solution inhibited the short-term corrosion of X100 pipeline steel, with the corrosion current density decreasing from 262.4 μA cm⁻² to 163.5 μA cm...

Obtaining a robust fiber/matrix interface is crucial for enhancing the mechanical performance of fiber-reinforced composites. This study addresses the issue by presenting a novel physical–chemical modification method to improve the interfacial property of an ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) fiber and epoxy resin. The UHMWPE fiber w...

Damage caused by random impact incidents can greatly reduce the load bearing capacity of composite structural components. In this study, numerical simulations were performed to investigate the influence of impact damage on the buckling and post-buckling performance of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP)/aluminium laminate (CARALL) channel-sectio...

In this study, the axial crushing behavior of aluminum/carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) hybrid tubes are systematically investigated numerically based on a three-dimensional (3D) progressive damage model. Experiments concerning hybrid tubes with 1/1 and 2/1 lay-up configurations are performed first to validate the numerical model. Then, the e...

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of metal‐composite interface (MCI) adhesive quantity on the energy absorption and failure behavior of fiber metal laminates (FMLs) under ballistic impact. The dynamic shear and ballistic impact tests were systematically conducted, and CT scan was employed to quantitatively investigate the damage a...

Dielectric-magnetic integrated absorbers have attracted arousing attention in microwave absorption, however, it still remains a great challenge to simultaneously achieve superior dielectric polarization and strong magnetic loss. Herein, we propose a multi-scale structure optimization strategy to anchor CoNi-MOFs derived 0D CoNi alloy onto 1D core-s...

The viscosity of shear thickening fluid (STF) changes significantly with low concentrations of additives. However, existing research has suggested that there has not been any consistent enhancement mechanism of additives. The possible reason for this research gap is that existing research has focused on the effect of the shape and content of additi...

To improve the design of lightweight, high-performance bulletproof armors, three columnar ceramic/fiber laminate composite armors were designed and prepared, and their ballistic behavior against 7.62 mm armor-piercing bullets was investigated. Through the microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) analysis of target samples, B4C ceramics were found to exh...

This study experimentally investigated the axial crushing characteristics of the hybrid tubes with the configuration of aluminum/carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) (1/1) and aluminum/CFRP/aluminum (2/1). The effects of geometry size and fiber lay-up sequence on the axial crushing energy-absorption performances and failure modes of the two types...

In this study, a novel inflatable mandrel assisted hot-pressing process for manufacturing channel-section CFRP-aluminum hybrid profiles was proposed. Effects of forming parameters on the forming quality were evaluated through inter-laminar performance testing, dimensional accuracy measurement and microstructure observation. Finite element analysis...

Developing mono-component electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing materials is desirable owing to their simple preparation methods; thus, it is crucial to investigate EMW absorbing mechanisms. However, owing to the requirements of excellent impedance matching and attenuation capability, EMW material design is considerably challenging. To address these...

Compared with the resin-based composite laminates, fiber metal laminates (FMLs) have superior impact resistance. In this study, investigations were made to reveal the effects of stacking sequence on the low-velocity failure mechanisms and energy dissipation characteristics of CFRP/Al hybrid laminates with same areal density. Experiments were carrie...

This paper investigates the effect of cumulative damage on the energy absorption capability of plain-woven fabric systems. The cumulative damage was generated by creating pre-damaged holes, aiming to simulate the post-impacted sample targets. Ballistic impact tests were performed to characterize the ballistic protection of the pre-damaged and undam...

Core-shell structural absorbers have attracted arousing attention in boosting microwave absorption in theory, however, it still remains great challenges to construct multiphase core-shell hetero-interfaces to manipulate interfacial polarization and final absorption performance. Herein, we propose a competition optimization strategy to fabricate one...

This paper investigates the influence of thread stitching on the ballistic performance of plain weaves made of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene multi-filament yarns. The inter-yarn friction is increased due to the constraint imparted by the sewing thread. The yarn pull-out test shows that the peak-load force of the sample with one stitching...

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) have been widely used in recent years for their high specific strength and stiffness. However, due to the high brittleness and low elongation, its application in protection engineering was limited. The introduction of other ductile fibers can ameliorate this shortcoming. In this paper, laminated construction a...

This paper investigates the influence of quilting on the ballistic performance of plain weaves. The friction between the fabric-forming yarns was increased due to the constraint imparted by thread quilting. Ballistic impact tests were performed to characterize the ballistic protection of the quilted and the un-quilted samples, and FE simulation was...

The weak interface performance between metal and composite (IPMC) makes the composite materials susceptible to impact load. Aluminum/glass fiber/polypropylene (Al/Gf/PP) laminates were manufactured with the aluminum alloy sheets modified by nitrogen plasma surface treatment and the phosphoric acid anodizing method, respectively. FEM models of Al/Gf...

This paper investigates the possibility of constraining yarn mobility and consequently improving the ballistic performance by modifying the structure of the plain weaves. The constraint on yarn mobility was characterized by the increase in the inter-yarn frictional force, which was confirmed by the yarn pull-out test. Ballistic penetration tests we...

Composite materials are susceptible to low velocity impact, which is a very common phenomenon. A large number of studies have been conducted on the single-point impact on their mechanical properties, but there is a lack of in-depth exploration on the actual situation of multi-point impact with a certain angle distribution of impact points. In this...

To improve the mechanical properties of polyaspartate polyurea (PAEP), functionalized nano‐silica reinforced polyurea composites were prepared. The original nano‐silica (O‐SiO2) was treated with 3‐aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), and the amino group at the end of APTES was used as the initiation site to realize the coating modification of poly(γ...

A composite of MoO3@Fe2(MoO4)3 and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) (MoO3@Fe2(MoO4)3/rGO) was prepared for application as a high-efficiency electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing material. MoO3 acted as the core that forms a conductive network between the rGO layers and Fe2(MoO4)3 acted as the shell of the MoO3@Fe2(MoO4)3 heterostructure that consumes th...

To improve the mechanical properties of polyaspartate polyurea (PAEP), functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes reinforced polyurea composites (HDIT-MWCNTs/PAEP) were prepared by covalently functionalizing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) trimer. The dispersibility, wettability and interfacial propert...

To enhance the interfacial properties of carbon fiber (CF) reinforced epoxy composites without damaging the CF strength. The polydopamine (PDA) was used as the precursor layer, and polyethyleneimine (PEI) and nano-silica (nano-SiO2) were deposited on the surface of CF by layer-by-layer electrostatic self-assembly. The layered strengthening material...

It has been widely accepted that yarn pull-out and windowing plays a vital role in absorbing impact energy in protective fabric systems. Stitching within the fabric was devised to constrain the transverse and lateral displacement of the primary yarns, using conventional cotton sewing threads. This paper reports the experimental and numerical method...

This paper investigates the torsion progressive damage and failure mechanism of two-dimensional (2D) braided carbon/epoxy composite tubes. Four kind of samples with four braiding angles, 30°, 45°, 55°, and 60°, are experimentally tested on the static torsion machine. Three-dimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC) is utilized to monitor the pr...

Z-pins can enhance the resistance to delamination for composites effectively under impact loads. In this paper, the effect of Z-pinning technique on double-position low velocity impact behaviors for composite laminates were explored. The two impact positions had the same distance from the center of the laminates with the impact distances of 0 mm, 1...

This paper investigates the penetration and energy absorption mechanisms of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene plain weaves with different fabric properties. Impact tests along with finite element (FE) analysis were used to study the impact response of the fabrics. In this research, the impacting projectile did not cause any fiber or yarn fai...

The impact hardening gel (IHG) reinforced Kevlar fabric composite is a new type of protective material prepared by Kevlar fabric as dispersed phase and IHG as matrix. In this paper, IHG was strengthened by SiO2 and T-ZnOw particles, and then the Kevlar fabric was compounded by dipping and sandwich lamination. With the help of rheological testing an...

To investigate the cratering effects of hypervelocity rod projectile impacting on rocks, a two-stage light gas gun was used to carry out 10 groups of small-scale experiments, whose velocity ranges from 1.5 km/s to 4.1 km/s. After each experiment, the morphology and size of the hypervelocity impacting crater were accurately obtained by using a devic...

This paper proposes a statistical approach to generate the refine meso-scale representative volume element of three-dimensional (3D) five-directional braided composites considering the fabric compaction and the axial yarn torsion. The method firstly extracts the regions of interest to obtain the reference model (R-model) from the X-ray computed tom...

In this work, SiC nanowires core and nano-porous carbon shell ([email protected]) was synthesized successfully via direct surface carbonization of SiC without any additional carbon source. The thickness of the carbon shell which can induce a remarkable improvement of dielectric properties can be modulated in range of 34–75 nm by controlling the tim...

This paper presents the influence of the off-axis angles on the low-velocity impact (LVI) and compression after impact (CAI) damage mechanism of three-dimensional (3D) woven carbon/epoxy composites. Three kind of samples with different angles, 0°, 30° and 45°, of the weft and warp yarn orientation were experimentally tested using the drop weight LV...

The previous work on nanocomposites containing silica nanoparticles has indicated that when a relatively high silica nanoparticles content is used, reinforcing effect of that weakens due to the formation of agglomerates of nanoparticles within the polyurethane matrix. Therefore, in this paper, shear thickening fluid-enhanced polyurethane foams were...

In order to improve the mechanical and tribological properties of epoxy composites, the hyperbranched polyesters with terminal carboxyl (HBP) were used for covalent functionalization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The dispersibility and wettability of functionalized MWCNTs (HBP-NH 2 -MWCNTs) in epoxy resin (EP) were analyzed. The HBP-NH...

In order to improve the interfacial properties of graphene oxide (GO) and epoxy resin (EP), hyperbranched polyesters with terminal carboxyl (HBP) non-covalently functionalized graphene oxide (HBP-GO) was achieved by strong π-π coupling between hyperbranched polyesters and GO nanosheets. The effects of non-covalent functionalization of GO on the dis...

Epoxy resin was grafted to graphene oxide (GO) via esterification reaction and 3D structure hybrids were prepared by combining 1D carbon nanotube (CNT) and 2D functionalized GO through π-stacking interaction. Epoxy composites filled with 3D structure hybrids were fabricated. The results show that functionalized GO effectively improves the dispersib...

The ball-milling/liquid-phase oxidation (BMLPO) method was used to fabricate surface-modified short carbon fibers (SCFs). Multiscale epoxy composites reinforced with a combination of SCFs and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) were prepared. Atomic force microscopy observations and contact angle measurement were used to investigate the modificati...

A hybrid multiscale epoxy adhesive reinforced with a combination of short carbon fibers and rubber nanoparticles was prepared for bonding oil-covered aluminum substrates. The shear performance of the bonded joints was investigated as a function of the oil layer thickness. Scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis studies wer...

In order to improve the wear resistance of titanium alloys, the Zr-based amorphous-nanocrystalline coatings were prepared by Electrospark Deposition (ESD) on the surface of TC11. The microstructure of the coatings was analyzed and the tribological behavior and mechanism of the coatings were investigated. The results show that the coating is mainly...

Short carbon fiber-reinforced composites (SCFRCs) have attracted increasing attention owing to their comprehensive performance and easy processing route. However, the imperfect interfacial adhesion and serious stress concentration at the fiber/matrix interface have hampered their engineering application. In this article, we first report the prepara...

Epoxy resins modified with low-viscosity hyperbranched epoxy were prepared. The tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength, fracture toughness, glass transition temperature (Tg) of the cured samples were investigated. The results show that the addition of hyperbranched epoxy improves the overall mechanical and fracture performance because...

Epoxy nanocomposites modified with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), rubber nanoparticles (RNPs), and the combinations of MWNTs and RNPs were prepared. The effects of multiphase reinforcements on mechanical and fracture properties of epoxy resin were investigated. With combined use of RNPs and MWNTs, the ternary nanocomposites exhibit simultane...