Study of SiO2 Nanoparticles on the Improved Performance of Epoxy and Fiber Composites

Abstract

SiO2-epoxy and SiO2-glass-fiber epoxy nanocomposites were prepared to study the influence of SiO2 nanofiller particles on the mechanical properties. The size and concentration of free volume were tested by positron annihilation spectroscopy. The experimental results demonstrate that uniform dispersion of nanoparticles play an important role in promoting the comprehensive performance of nanocomposites. 115, 13, and 60% increase have been achieved at 3 wt% of nanoparticles for the tensile strength, tensile modulus, and impact strength, respectively. The studies on the effects of SiO2 nanoparticles on the properties of glass-fiber composites show that the SiO2 nanoparticles can generally promote their properties especially the bend strength that ends up with 69.4% enhancement. This is attributed to the promoted bonding forces between glass fibers and matrices owing to the presence of nanoparticles.

Processability studies of silica‐thermoset polymer matrix nanocomposites

“…Mechanical mixing of Araldite LY564 and silica powder was carried out using a mechanical stirrer at 600 rpm for 30 min. Then the hardener was mixed 8 mechanically into the epoxy and the mixture was left to cure at room temperature for 3 days.…”

“…Nanocomposites with silica nanoparticles have been reported to display increased mechanical properties [8,9] such as modulus, tensile, flexural and impact strength up to a certain silica content (e.g. 2.5% [10]) and decreased mechanical properties thereafter, improved fracture toughness [11] and better thermal stability [12,13].…”

Liquid composite moulding of fibre nanocomposites

“…5%) 13 and decreased mechanical properties thereafter, improved fracture toughness 14 and better thermal stability. 15,16 Hybrid composites including fibre reinforcement in a polymer matrix with dispersed nanoparticles have been the subject of several recent studies where it has been reported that the nanoparticle-fibre composites, when compared with the corresponding fibre composites, displayed higher in plane shear strength (glass fibreorganoclay-epoxy composites 17 ), increased interlaminar shear strength, flexural strength, flexural modulus and fracture toughness (glass fibre-clay-vinyl ester composites, 5 glass fibre-clay-epoxy composites, 18 carbon fibre-clay-epoxy composites, 19 glass fibre-silica-epoxy composites 11 ) and better thermal properties. 5,18 However, there are no studies on the processability of such composites, especially at relatively high fibre content.…”

A comparative study on the preparation and physical properties of environmental friendly PMMA‐silica nano/sub‐micron‐scale hybrid latexes controlled by chelating agent

“…One method to create silica particles, which was developed by Stöber more than 30 years ago, uses the sol‐gel process [10]. In the Stöber process, silica particles are created by the hydrolysis and condensation of silicon alkoxides in alcohol solvents in the presence of a base (e.g., NH 3 ) and H 2 O. Silica nanoparticles dispersed homogeneously within polymer matrices, for example, have been reported to enhance mechanical properties [11, 12] including Young's modulus, flexural, tensile, and impact strength. As a result, fracture toughness [13] and thermal stability [14, 15] are also improved.…”