Largely improved interfacial adhesion and fatigue life of aramid fiber/polymer composites by developing GO enhanced eco-friendly dip-coating system

Abstract

For achieving high performance and long fatigue life of fiber-reinforced polymer composites (FRPC), a key is to construct strong interfacial bonding between fibers and polymer. Herein, an epoxy resin-based environmentally friendly dipping solution (named as MGL) for aramid fiber (AF) was newly designed and produced to obtain the same good interfacial bonding with natural rubber (NR) as that using traditional toxic resorcinol–formaldehyde-rubber latex (RFL). The H pull-out force and fatigue life of AF/NR composites treated by using the new MGL dipping system are even higher than that using RFL. Based on the theory of interface stress transfer, polyethyleneimine (PEI) modified graphene oxide (GO) was further introduced into the new dipping system, and the H pull-out force, 180° peel-out force and fatigue life of AF/NR composites largely increase by 23.8%, 26.7% and 60.7%, respectively. The H pull-out force of AF/NR composites is significantly higher than that reported in previous studies.