Nanoclay and long‐fiber‐reinforced composites based on epoxy and phenolic resins

Abstract

In this study, high-performance thermoset polymer composites are synthesized by using both long fibers and nanoclays. Epoxy and phenolic resins, the two most important thermoset polymers, are used as the polymer matrix. The hydrophobic epoxy resin is mixed with surface modified nanoclay, while the hydrophilic phenolic resin is mixed with unmodified raw nanoclay to form nanocomposites. Long carbon fibers are also added into the nanocomposites to produce hybrid composites. Mechanical and thermal properties of synthesized composites are compared with both long-fiber-reinforced composites and polymerlayered silicate composites. The optimal conditions of sample preparation and processing are also investigated to achieve the best properties of the hybrid composites. It is found that mechanical and thermal properties of epoxy and phenolic nanocomposites can be substantially improved.

Mechanical and tribological properties of nanofilled phenolic-matrix laminated composites

“…In the case of carbon-phenolic composites with nanoclays, studies show that higher nanoclay contents decrease the erosion rate, surface temperature and insulation index, 26 and can improve some properties, such as the flexural strength, stiffness and glass-transition temperature. 27 On the contrary, there are studies that report a decrease in the flexural strength and stiffness. 16 Literature also presents studies that examine the effect of montmorillonite nanoclays on the mechanical and morphological characteristics of the glassfiber-reinforced composites based on the novolac phenol-formaldehyde matrix, showing that a nanoclay addition enhances the mechanical properties when a strong matrix-fiber interface is observed.…”

Low-velocity Impact Response of a Nanocomposite Beam Using an Analytical Model

“…Since the manufacturing of nanoclay/epoxy nanocomposites in 1993 (Kojima et al, 1993) and carbon nanotubes in 1991 (Iijima, 1991), many investigations have been carried out on these types of nanocomposites over the past decade. Nanocomposites have some unique properties such as high elastic modulus (Saber-Samandari and Afaghi-Khatibi, 2007;Saber-Samandari and Khatibi, 2006), high tensile strength , thermal resistance, flame retardancy, high fracture toughness (Xu and Hoa, 2008), optical properties and dimensional stability (Utracki, 2004), and water resistance (Zhou et al, 2008) by adding slight amount of nanofillers.…”

One-dimensional heat transfer study of a fiber-reinforced wind epoxy composite system in vacuum assisted resin transfer molding process

“…Polymer matrix composites have shown great promise as high strength structural materials and are widely used in aerospace, wind energy, marine, automotive industry and civil infrastructure due to their high strength‐to‐weight ratio, low specific gravity and brilliant mechanical performance, compared with traditional materials . Among all manufacturing methods and thermosetting resins of fiber reinforced polymer composites and strength structure materials, vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM), as one of the improved resin transfer molding (RTM) process, is a widely used eco‐friendly process and epoxy resin is the most widely used and promising due to its low shrinkage and excellent mechanical performance . Such as diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) epoxy system is popular in RTM process as medium curing temperature commercial epoxy resin .…”