In this article, the effects of using nanometer and micrometer-sized aluminum particles in glass fiber reinforcement epoxy composites have been studied. The study evaluates the mechanical properties improvement with the addition of nanometer and micrometer-sized aluminum particles to glass fiber reinforcement epoxy composites. The combination of aluminum and woven glass fibers provide high potential for the modification of the epoxy matrix. The composites were produced by hand lay-up technique. The glass fiber volume fraction was kept constant at 35%, while the contents of aluminum particles were increased from 0.2 to 4 wt%. The developed composites showed enhanced tensile, flexural, hardness, wear, and impact behavior as compared to glass fiber reinforcement epoxy. An enhancement of 27% was attained in tensile strength with glass fiber reinforcement epoxy filled with 2 wt% aluminum nanoparticles; however, adding 4 wt% nanometer-sized aluminum particles showed an improvement of 114%, 116%, 21%, 52.2%, 21.4%, 76.6% in tensile elongation, toughness, tensile modulus, flexural strength, flexural strain, flexural modulus, respectively as compared to neat glass fiber reinforcement epoxy. Increasing the nanometer-sized aluminum particles in glass fiber reinforcement epoxy composites to 4 wt% reversed the improvement trend in tensile strengths, wear, and hardness. However, increasing the micrometer-sized aluminum particles to 4 wt% has shown fair improvement in all used aluminum loadings. Microscopy results showed that the aluminum particles were well dispersed in the epoxy matrix. However, a higher weight fraction of nano-aluminum in the epoxy had promoted little agglomerations.

Polymers are essential matrix materials for fabricating advanced composites. The reinforcing materials take many forms. In addition to continuous fibers, filler reinforced was used. In this work, the influence of incorporation nano-metal particles to glass fiber/epoxy composites was investigated. Aluminum was used as metal nanoparticles. Nano and Micro fillers was sonicated with epoxy resin by ultrasonic processor to ensure good distribution of fillers. The composite laminate was fabricated by hand lay-up technique. Woven glass fiber was used as fiber reinforcement. The volume fraction of glass fiber was 35%. The aluminium fillers were added with weight percentage of 0.2 wt%, 2-wt% and 4-wt%. The results show that the fabricated composites have shown an improvement in tensile, flexural, and hardness strengths as compared to neat glass fiber/epoxy composites. The failure strain increased in both the tensile and flexural tests. Increasing the weight content of nano aluminium particles to 4-wt % decrease the tensile strengths. However, increasing the aluminium micro-particles to 4 wt% has shown enhancement in mechanical properties. Micro aluminum fillers indicated a maximum of 195 MPa at 4wt% Al. A higher weight fraction of nano Al in the epoxy resin had showed little agglomerations. The water absorption values observed were lower for composite filled with nanoparticle. The flexural strength increased by 52.21%, flexural strain by 21.4 %, and flexural modulus by 76.57% compared to GFRE.