Dynamic mechanical and thermal mechanical analysis of Cyperus malaccensis sedge fiber reinforced GO-incorporated epoxy nanocomposites: a short communication

Abstract

The sedge fiber extracted from the Cyperus malaccensis (CM) plant has recently been found as a promising reinforcement of polymer composites. Incorporation of 30 vol.% CM sedge fibers improved the impact resistance and tensile elastic modulus of epoxy composites with only slight differences in their thermogravimetric parameters. However, dynamic mechanical viscoelastic behavior is still needed to complete these composites characterization for possible engineering applications. This complementary research work extends the previous study to dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and thermal mechanical analysis (TMA) for GO-incorporated epoxy matrix nanocomposites incorporated with 30 vol.% of CM sedge fibers. In comparison to basic epoxy (control sample) the damping factor (tan δ), as the ratio between DMA loss and storage moduli, is significantly increased from 0.45 to 0.75 for 30 vol.% CM fiber composite. TMA findings disclosed only slight variations in the glass transition temperature (119–124 °C) as well as in the thermal expansion coefficient (168 x 10–6 to 220 x 10–6/°C). These DMA and TMA results confirms the promising CM sedge fiber reinforcing effect on GO-incorporated epoxy nanocomposites and its mechanical/thermal viscoelastic contribution.