Use of morphological features of carbonaceous materials for improved mechanical properties of epoxy nanocomposites

Atif, Rasheed; Wei, Jiacheng; Shyha, Islam; Inam, Fawad

Abstract

The influence of reinforcement morphology on damage tolerance and fracture toughness of epoxy based nanocomposites has been studied. Two different forms of carbonaceous reinforcements were used: multi-layered graphene (MLG) and nanostructured graphite (NSG). The maximum increase in Young's modulus was observed from 609.6 MPa to 766 MPa (25.7% increase) in the case of 0.1 wt% NSG. The NSG showed a maximum increase in hardness up to 7.9% while MLG showed up to 18.3%. The MLG and NSG increased the storage modulus and Tg while loss modulus and tan δ decreased with MLG and NSG. SEM images of the fractured surfaces of tensile specimens showed that the fracture mode was significantly altered by MLG and NSG.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 11, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Dec 15, 2015
• Publication Date: 2016
• Deposit Date: Jan 11, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 11, 2021
• Journal: RSC Advances
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 1351-1359
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C5RA24039E
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2686870
• Related Public URLs: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/25041/