Abstract
Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT)/ vinyl ester nanocomposites with three different contents of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been prepared by the simple melt-compounding method. A fine and homogeneous dispersion of CNTs throughout vinyl ester resin has been noticed by SEM images. Two mechanical tests (compression and three point bending test) show that, compared to neat vinyl ester resin, compression modulus and compression strength of the nanocomposites have been significantly improved by about 9% and 14%, respectively, when incorporating only 0.15 wt.% MWCNTs. Furthermore, thermal behavior of SWCNT and MWCNT/ vinyl ester nanocomposites has been investigated and discussed based on differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermo- mechanical analysis (TMA). Glass transition temperature (Tg) and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) have been increased and decreased, respectively, with increasing of CNTs content.
Highlights
Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT)/ vinyl ester nanocomposites with three different contents of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been prepared by the simple melt-compounding method
It is worth comparing the mechanical properties of MWCNT/ vinyl ester with SWCNT/ vinyl ester nanocomposites studied here
In case of compression tests performed at speed up to 5 mm/min, SWCNTs induced better mechanical behavior of the nanocomposites than MWCNTs
Summary
Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT)/ vinyl ester nanocomposites with three different contents of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been prepared by the simple melt-compounding method. The flexural stress of vinyl ester depends on the curing temperature, such that decreasing the curing temperature from 1100C to 800 or 900C, lead to an increasing flexural stress with 15% and. Mechanical properties of vinyl ester such as flexural strength, compression strength and modulus, depends on curing temperature and may be improved by addition of different additive. It is known the good compatibility between vinyl ester resin and glass fibers [7,8] or clay [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17] and their beneficial effect on the mechanical properties of the vinyl ester composites. In order to improve the thermal properties, glass flakes [21,22,23], clay [13,14,15], and glass fibers [24,25,26,27] have been introduced into vinyl ester resin
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