Short beam shear behaviour of ZnO nanowire reinforced glass/epoxy composites

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes the short beam shear (SBS) test properties of plain and ZnO nanowire reinforced unidirectional glass/epoxy composites. A simple low temperature hydrothermal process was used to synthesize ZnO nanowires on glass fabrics. Two different annealing conditions were used for seeding of ZnO nanoparticles which were then grown into ZnO single crystalline nanowires. The morphology of ZnO nanowires was found to be more uniform in the case of fabrics treated with extended annealing cycle. Both plain and ZnO nanowire coated fabrics were then used to fabricate glass/epoxy composites using hand lay-up technique. Short beam shear (SBS) test was performed to evaluate the interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) of composite samples, wherein the induced delamination damages were studied under scanning electron microscope. The results showed that while the ZnO nanowire reinforcement reduced the delamination resistance of composites, it improved the delamination damage tolerance.