Mechanical characterization of nano-CaCO3 inclusions reinforced PPS/GF polymer hybrid composites

Abstract

The current work investigates the mechanical properties of hybrid composite deals with nano-calcium carbonate compounded with 40 wt. % of glass fiber (GF) incorporated with Polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) composites. The primary objective was to evaluate the effect of varying weight fractions of nano-CaCO3 (3%, 5%, and 7%) on the tensile and hardness properties of the composites at ambient conditions. It is found that tensile strength, strain, extension at a breakpoint, energy to break, young’s modulus properties, and hardness of fabricated composites significantly improved with varying in the weight fraction (φf) of the nanoparticle inclusions (3%, 5% and 7%). Tensile properties were enhanced by up to 3% weight fraction of nanoparticles, and hardness was improved by up to 5% weight fraction of nano inclusions. The work’s findings enhanced tensile strength by 8%, tensile strain, and tensile extension at breakpoint strength by 5.42%, improvement of young’s modulus by 40%, tensile energy by 14%, and improvement of brinell hardness number by 3.14%. The fractured surfaces of the composites were analyzed using SEM to study the surface morphology of the ternary composites.