Effect of HNT as Secondary Reinforcement on Fracture Toughness of Epoxy-Carbon Fabric Composites
摘要
Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) are naturally available inorganic tubular structure material. Development of polymer composites filled with HNTs have wide range of application in structural, automotive, aircraft and others. In present work the epoxy composites reinforced with carbon fabric and 0.1, 0.2, 0.5 and 0.75 wt% of Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) were fabricated using hand layup method. The impact and fracture toughness test of composites was performed to analyze the effect of addition of HNTs as secondary reinforcement. The test results display the enhancement of both impact and fracture behaviour of composites with the addition HNTs filler. The high porosity and aspect ratio of HNT improves the interfacial adhesion and effective load transfer between matrix and reinforcement which leads to improve the both mechanical and fracture properties of composites. In addition, the crack bridging effect of HNTs significantly controls the crack propagation and it leads to exhibits better fracture toughness of composites.