Effect of cryogenic treatment on mechanical behavior of PALF reinforced polymer composite

Abstract

Fiber-reinforced polymer composites find its applications in various fields like aerospace, automobile, marine, electrical, manufacturing and civil engineering etc. Most of these applications demands for the materials with very high strength, structural stability, very high thermal and electrical stability etc. This triggers most of the researchers to focus their attention on finding the newer methods to improve the properties of the composite. The main objective of this work is to investigate the effect of cryogenic treatment and the duration of treatment on the mechanical behavior of PALF reinforced polymer composite. The PALF reinforced composite samples were subjected to cryogenic treatment by dipping in liquid nitrogen for different duration of time. The samples were removed from the liquid nitrogen container after treated for different duration of time in steps of 1 h. Removed samples were allowed to attain room temperature before testing for mechanical properties. The maximum tensile strength of 46.04 MPa with a modulus of 4.67GPa and the maximum flexural strength of 107.96 MPa with a flexural modulus of 4.63GPa was obtained for the specimen cryogenically treated for 10 h. The tensile and flexural strength were almost increased by 84.16% and 71.71% respectively when compared to the untreated specimen. Further increase in the duration of treatment decreases the tensile and flexural strength of the composite. The present work highlights that cryogenic treatment greatly influences the mechanical behavior of PALF reinforced polymer composite.