Abstract
In this work the fracture toughness of epoxy resin has been improved through the addition of low loading of single part and hybrid nanofiller materials. Functionalised multi-walled carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs) was used as single filler, increased the critical strain energy release rate, GIC, by 57% compared to the neat epoxy, at only 0.1 wt% filler content. Importantly, no degradation in the tensile or thermal properties of the nanocomposite was observed compared to the neat epoxy. When two-dimensional boron nitride nanosheets (BNNS) were added along with the one-dimensional f-MWCNTs, the fracture toughness increased further to 71.6% higher than that of the neat epoxy. Interestingly, when functionalised graphene nanoplatelets (f-GNPs) and boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) were used as hybrid filler, the fracture toughness of neat epoxy is improved by 91.9%. In neither of these hybrid filler systems the tensile properties were degraded, but the thermal properties of the nanocomposites containing boron nitride materials deteriorated slightly.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Materials |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 1179 |
| Early online date | 19 Oct 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 19 Oct 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Note: This article belongs to the Special Issue Improving Performance of Nanocomposite Materials)This work was supported by Kingston University, the National Physical Laboratory and the Strategic Capability programme of the National Measurement System of the UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills [Project number 118616].
Keywords
- Mechanical, aeronautical and manufacturing engineering
- boron nitride nanosheet
- boron nitride nanotube
- carbon nanotube
- epoxy
- fracture toughness
- graphene
- hybrid nanocomposite