Surface treatment of carbon/epoxy and glass/epoxy composites with an excimer laser beam

The use of an excimer laser treatment, as a way to control the adhesion performances of glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy composites has been investigated. Such a specific surface treatment can provide a selective removal of the organic matrix without any degradation of fibre reinforcements. the influence of such treatments has been studied through surface roughness, wettability assessment and ESCA analysis. The use of two different adhesives in association with different surface treatments allows drawing some conclusions on the role and potential interest of surface cleaning and fibre protruding on the adhesion behaviour of resulting composite surfaces.