Improvement of impact strength of novel intra-ply basalt/kevlar composite by addition of silica nanoparticles in comparison with basalt/kevlar composite using resin transfer mould process

Abstract

The objective of this work was to enhance the impact strength of hybrid basalt/kevlar composite by the addition of 8% of silica nanoparticles. In this research work, a novel composite laminate was developed using hybrid composite fibers i.e basalt and kevlar with addition to silica nanoparticles. The influence of silica nanoparticles as filler material on the mechanical properties is studied. The two groups of materials are taken; they are the control group and the experimental group. In both groups, the basalt and kevlar fibers are used. The composite materials basalt/kevlar without addition of silica nanoparticles was considered as a control group. The composite materials basalt/kevlar with the addition of 8% silica nanoparticles was considered as an experimental group. From each group, twenty samples are taken for the study. The impact testing machine was used to conduct the impact test. The SPSS tools are used for statistical analysis. It was clearly shown that basalt and Kevlar fiber with filler exhibits an improvement of 20% increase in the impact strength when compared with basalt and Kevlar fiber without filler. The significance value of 0.029 which was less than 0.05. Within the scope of the study, the laminates with the addition of silica nanoparticles exhibit better impact strength compared with plain hybrid basalt and Kevlar composites that can be used as a replacement for automobile components and also aircraft fuselage.