Effect of thermally reduced graphene oxide on dynamic mechanical properties of carbon fiber/epoxy composite

Abstract

The Carbon fiber (CF)/epoxy composites are being used in the automotive and aerospace industries owing to their high specific mechanical strength to weight ratio compared to the other conventional metal and alloys. However, the low interfacial adhesion between fiber and polymer matrix results the inter-laminar fracture of the composites. Effects of different carbonaceous nanomaterials i.e., carbon nanotubes (CNT), graphene nanosheets (GNPs), graphene oxide (GO) etc. on the static mechanical properties of the composites were investigated in detail. Only a few works focused on the improvement of the dynamic mechanical of the CF/epoxy composites. Herein, the effect of thermally reduced grapheme oxide (TRGO) on the dynamic mechanical properties of the CF/epoxy composites was investigated. At first, GO was synthesized using modified Hummers method and then reduced the synthesized GO inside a vacuum oven at 800 °C for 5 min. The prepared TRGO was dispersed in the epoxy resin to modify the epoxy matrix. Then, a number of TRGO/CF/epoxy laminates were manufactured incorporating different wt% of TRGO by vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) technique. The developed laminates were cured at room temperature for 24 h and then post cured at 120 °C for 2 h. The dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA 8000 Perkin Elmer) was used to examine the dynamic mechanical properties of the TRGO/CF/epoxy composites according to ASTM D7028. The dimension of the specimen was 44×10×2.4 mm3 for the DMA test. This test was carried out under flexural loading mode (duel cantilever) at a frequency of 1 Hz and amplitude of 50 μm. The temperature was ramped from 30 to 200 °C with a heating rate of 5 °C min-1. The dynamic mechanical analysis of the 0.2 wt% TRGO incorporated CF/epoxy composites showed ~ 96% enhancement in storage modulus and ~ 12 °C increments in glass transition temperature (Tg) compared to the base CF/epoxy composites. The fiber-matrix interaction was studied by Cole-Cole plot analysis. It proved the homogeneous dispersion of the epoxy resin and TRGO. The homogeneous dispersion of the TRGO in the epoxy matrix increased the overall enhancement of the dynamic mechanical properties of the hybrid composites.