An experimental investigation on enhancing the strength and stiffness of GFRP co-cured composite joint: effect of glass powder addition

Abstract

Co-cure adhesive joints are being preferably used by various industries, namely automobile, marine and aerospace, to joint two surfaces in structural applications as a useful replacement for mechanical fastenings. The present work focuses on mechanical properties and free vibration behaviour of co-cured glass fiber composites which is being reinforced with glass powder. In the course of the experimentation, the adhesive is being reinforced concurrently with glass powder belonging to four different weight percentages such as 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% and 2%. The mechanical testing results reveal that the addition of 1.5% of glass powder to the epoxy could relatively help in increasing the tensile strength and flexural strength of co-cured glass fiber composites respectively to the degree of 11.68% (364.29 Mpa) and 24.75% (256.16 Mpa). Single lap shear results shows that the 0.5% glass powder reinforcement significantly increases the shear strength of cocured glass fiber composites by 20.91% (19.31 Mpa). Furthermore, the free vibrational study of 1.5 % co-cured composites show that they have a higher fundamental natural frequency than the glass powder reinforced co-cured composites that have a lower weight percentage. Furthermore, the addition of glass powder to co-cured composites helps in increasing the damping factor of the composites due to the glass powder agglomeration. Neat and glass powder reinforced co-cured samples are father being analysed afterwards using the mechanical and shear test by scanning electron microscopy.