A STUDY ON GLASS FIBER REINFORCED POLYMER-CLAY NANOCOMPOSITES WITH SANDWICH STRUCTURE

Abstract

Glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) has been found attractive due to high strength-to-weight ratio, high stiffness-to-weight ratio, and corrosion and fatigue resistance. The properties of GFRP are further enhanced by adding very small amount of nanometer size particles. The use of sandwich composites with GFRP face sheets is becoming popular in structural design because of their ability to substantially decrease weight while maintaining mechanical performance. In this study face sheets of sandwich composites are modified using nanoclay particles. The sandwich structure composed of bidirectional E-glass fiber, Closite 30B nanoclay, epoxy resin and high density thermocol. Hand layup method was used for fabrication of sheets also the nanoclay percentage was varied subjected to various test. The use of nano composite increases the bending strength up to 41% as compared to virgin epoxy. The natural degradation of bending specimen with neat epoxy showed the maximum degradation up to 10% and it was 5% in case of specimens with nano composite sheets. The water resistance property of epoxy was improved by the addition of both glass fibre and nanoclay. The tensile strength is raised by 33% by using 3% of clay in the epoxy. The SEM and XRD were performed for characterization of the nano composites.