Mechanical Properties of Epoxy and Its Carbon Fiber Composites Modified by Nanoparticles

Journal of Nanomaterials, Oct 2017

Compressive properties are commonly weak parts in structural application of fiber composites. Matrix modification may provide an effective way to improve compressive performance of the composites. In this work, the compressive property of epoxies (usually as matrices of fiber composites) modified by different types of nanoparticles was firstly investigated for the following study on the compressive property of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites. Carbon fiber/epoxy composites were fabricated by vacuum assisted resin infusion molding (VARIM) technique using stitched unidirectional carbon fabrics, with the matrices modified with nanosilica, halloysite, and liquid rubber. Testing results showed that the effect of different particle contents on the compressive property of fiber/epoxy composites was more obvious than that in epoxies. Both the compressive and flexural results showed that rigid nanoparticles (nanosilica and halloysite) have evident strengthening effects on the compression and flexural responses of the carbon fiber composite laminates fabricated from fabrics.

A PDF file should load here. If you do not see its contents the file may be temporarily unavailable at the journal website or you do not have a PDF plug-in installed and enabled in your browser.

Alternatively, you can download the file locally and open with any standalone PDF reader:

http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/jnm/2017/8146248.pdf

Mechanical Properties of Epoxy and Its Carbon Fiber Composites Modified by Nanoparticles

Mechanical Properties of Epoxy and Its Carbon Fiber Composites Modified by Nanoparticles Fang Liu,1 Shiqiang Deng,2 and Jianing Zhang2 1College of Civil Engineering, Xijing University, Xi’an 710123, China 2Centre for Advanced Materials Technology, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Correspondence should be addressed to Fang Liu; moc.361@retniw_gnafuil Received 9 May 2017; Accepted 20 September 2017; Published 19 October 2017 Academic Editor: Jim Low Copyright © 2017 Fang Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Compressive properties are commonly weak parts in structural application of fiber composites. Matrix modification may provide an effective way to improve compressive performance of the composites. In this work, the compressive property of epoxies (usually as matrices of fiber composites) modified by different types of nanoparticles was firstly investigated for the following study on the compressive property of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites. Carbon fiber/epoxy composites were fabricated by vacuum assisted resin infusion molding (VARIM) technique using stitched unidirectional carbon fabrics, with the matrices modified with nanosilica, halloysite, and liquid rubber. Testing results showed that the effect of different particle contents on the compressive property of fiber/epoxy composites was more obvious than that in epoxies. Both the compressive and flexural results showed that rigid nanoparticles (nanosilica and halloysite) have evident strengthening effects on the compression and flexural responses of the carbon fiber composite laminates fabricated from fabrics. 1. Introduction With extensive applications of polymer and its composites, the demand for materials that possess excellent mechanical properties is increasing. It is well known that most advanced fiber composites are stronger in tension (in the fiber direction) than in compression. This behavior is due to fact that the compressive strength of unidirectional composites is governed by microbuckling of fibers embedded in the matrix [1, 2], with the fiber waviness being the major factor [3]. Compressive properties are commonly weak parts in structural application of composites, particularly for the composite laminates prepared using fiber fabrics. The similar situation also exists for mechanical performance of the composites under flexural loads. The reductions in compressive and flexural behaviors of the composite laminates using fabrics are greatly attributed to the presence of fiber waviness [4, 5]. Currently, cost-effective manufacture methods, such as resin transfer molding (RTM) and vacuum assisted resin infusion molding (VARIM), are being extensively used for mass production of composite structures, which use fiber fabrics or preform as reinforcements, instead of prepregs. Therefore, improvements in compression and flexural properties via proper methods can definitely benefit composite structural design and lead to the wider applications of the materials in different areas. Obviously, matrix strengthening is primarily one of the approaches among the methods to improve the compression and flexural properties of the composites manufactured from fiber fabrics [6–8]. Addition of a small amount of rigid nanoparticles in a polymer matrix has been proved to increase its mechanical properties significantly [9–13]. Some attempts have been made to take this advantage of nanoparticle reinforced matrix to enhance the mechanical performance of fiber composites [8, 14–16]. Many published studies extensively focused on tensile properties, fracture toughness, and interfacial strength of carbon fiber composite [17–21] with modified matrices using nanoparticles. Only a limited number of studies were conducted to investigate the influence of nanoparticles on the compressive and flexural properties of fiber/epoxy composites, particularly, for the composites prepared by RTM and VARIM. Cho et al. [22] reported 10% and 16% improvement in longitudinal compressive strength of carbon/epoxy composites with 55% fiber volume fraction by adding 3 wt.% and 5 wt.% graphite nanoparticles in epoxy matrices. He et al. [23] investigated compressive strength of nano-calcium carbonate/epoxy and its fiber composites, revealing a noticeable improvement of 13.5% and 14.1%, increases in compressive strength, for the cured bulk epoxy matrix and its fiber composites filled with 4 wt.% nano-CaCO3. Sánchez et al. [24] also observed large rises in the flexural strength when functionalized carbon nanotubes were added, with the improvement of 12% in flexural strength at CNT–NH2 content of 0.3 wt.%. In the present study, carbon fiber/epoxy composites with their matrices modified by rigid nanopartic (...truncated)


This is a preview of a remote PDF: http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/jnm/2017/8146248.pdf

Fang Liu, Shiqiang Deng, Jianing Zhang. Mechanical Properties of Epoxy and Its Carbon Fiber Composites Modified by Nanoparticles, Journal of Nanomaterials, 2017, 2017, DOI: 10.1155/2017/8146248