Abstract
A typical diglycidyl ether of bisphenol‐F (DGEBF)/diethyl toluene diamine (DETD) epoxy system modified by multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and a reactive aliphatic diluent named n‐butyl glycidyl ether (BGE) was used as the matrix for glass fiber composites. The glass fiber (GF) reinforced composites based on the unmodified and modified epoxy matrices were prepared by the hand lay‐up hot‐press process. Mode II interlaminar fracture toughness at both room temperature (RT) and cryogenic temperature (77 K) of the GF reinforced epoxy composites was investigated to examine the effect of the matrix modification. The result showed that the introduction of MWCNTs and BGE at their previously reported optimal contents led to the remarkable enhancement in mode II interlaminar fracture toughness of the composites. Namely, the 22.9% enhancement at RT and the 31.4% enhancement at 77 K were observed for mode II interlaminar fracture toughness of the fiber composite based on the optimally modified epoxy matrix by MWCNTs and BGE compared to the unmodified case.
Highlights
It is well known that matrices play a very important role in load transfer and crack resistance and significantly affect the mechanical properties of fiber reinforced composites
The fracture surface observation coincides with the results for GIIc of samples. This indicates that the incorporation of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and butyl glycidyl ether (BGE) into the conventional GFRP composites based on the pure epoxy matrix creates an increased fracture surface due to crack deflection [13], which will lead to the enhancement in the interlaminar fracture toughness
It is reasonable to observe that the simultaneous introduction of MWCNTs and BGE into the epoxy matrix has brought about the significant enhancement in mode II interlaminar fracture toughness
Summary
It is well known that matrices play a very important role in load transfer and crack resistance and significantly affect the mechanical properties of fiber reinforced composites. Reactive BGE has been displayed to have an effective role in modifying epoxy resins at the optimal content of 10 wt% [8] At these optimal contents, the glass fiber reinforced composites based. Mode II interlaminar fracture toughness (GIIc) at RT and 77 K of the glass fiber reinforced composites based on the unmodified and modified epoxy resins was investigated to examine the effect of matrix modification by multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and BGE. The significant enhancement in mode II interlaminar fracture toughness at both RT and 77 K of the glass fiber reinforced composite was observed by the modification of the epoxy at the optimal contents of MWCNTs and BGE
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