The effects of nano-silica/nano-alumina on fatigue behavior of glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composites

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental and statistical study of the fatigue behavior of unidirectional glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composite rods manufactured using pultrusion technique and modified with nanoparticles of alumina (Al2O3) and silica (SiO2) at four different weight fractions (0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 wt.%). Tensile test was performed to investigate the influence of nanoparticles. Addition of alumina nanoparticles up to 3 wt.% increases the tensile strength by 54.76% over the pure glass fiber-reinforced epoxy specimen. For silica nanoparticles, there is an increase in the tensile strength of 31.29% for the content of 0.5 wt.% over the pure glass fiber-reinforced epoxy specimen. As the silica nanoparticles’ content increases over 0.5 wt.%, there is a decrease in the tensile strength. Rotating bending fatigue tests have been conducted at five different stress levels. Fatigue life of glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composite rods modified with alumina nanoparticles increases as the content of the nanoparticles increases. The effect of adding silica nanoparticles on the fatigue life of glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composite rods is relatively insignificant with a small improvement in the content of 0.5 wt.% silica above the pure glass fiber-reinforced epoxy specimens. Two-parameter Weibull distribution function was used to statistically analyze the fatigue life data.

Compression after Impact Behaviour and Failure Analysis of Nanosilica-Toughened Thin Epoxy/GFRP Composite Laminates

“…Significant enhancement in fracture toughness of the matrix system was observed in various cases through key toughening mechanisms like crack pinning, crack deflection, crack bridging, and filler debonding [7,8]. Researchers endeavored to use nanofillers, like single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT), double- walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNT), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) [9,10,11,12], graphene [13,14,15], nanoclay [16,17,18], and nanosilica [19,20,21] into various polymers and reported the effect of reinforcement in polymer composites. However, reinforcing nanofillers into the polymer matrix does not always enhance the fracture toughness and modulus of the composite material.…”

“…Gong et al [19] synthesized nanosilica fillers of 80 nm by a sol-gel technique and achieved a homogeneous dispersion through mechanical blending and enhanced interfacial bonding between glass fiber and modified epoxy. Fathy et al [20] synthesized silica nanoparticles of a size in the order of 10–20 nm and examined the fatigue performance of nanosilica-reinforced glass fiber composite laminates. Johnsen et al [21] investigated the influence of nanofillers of different sizes as toughening agents and also explored the associated toughening mechanisms.…”

Assessments of Secondary Reinforcement of Epoxy Matrix-Glass Fibre Composite Laminates through Nanosilica (SiO2)

“…Nanosilica is identified as a new potential candidate material for secondary reinforcement as it occupies the tiniest voids and enhances the interfacial binding of the fibers in the laminates which results in substantial stress transfer. A few research activities using nanosilica as secondary reinforcement is reported in [31,32,33]. Gong et al [31] synthesized silica nano fillers of size 80 nm by sol gel technique.…”

“…They successfully achieved homogeneous dispersion using mechanical blending and reported enhanced interfacial bonding between glass fibre and modified epoxy. Fathy et al [32] synthesized silica nano particle of size 10–20 nm and investigated the fatigue behaviour of nano silica reinforced glass fibre composite laminates. Johnsen et al [33] studied the effect of nano fillers of different sizes as toughening agents and explored the associated toughening mechanisms.…”

Fabrication and evaluation of tribological properties of Al2O3 coated Ag reinforced copper matrix nanocomposite by mechanical alloying

“…Many methods have been suggested in the survey for the preparation of copper matrix composites like stir casting [29], traditional powder metallurgy [30][31][32], hot press [33], friction stir processing (FSP) [34,35], infiltration [36] and spark plasma sintering (SPS) [37,38]. Casting method is a suitable technique for enhancing mechanical characteristics; however, hard in dominant mixing the constituents [39].…”