Thermal analysis of multi-walled carbon nanotubes doped glass fiber reinforced polymer composites

Abstract

Thermal characterization is one of the important aspects for evaluating the heat flux and decomposition kinetics of different materials, alloys and composites at different temperature. In this work Multi-scale nano-composites (MWCNTs/glass fiber/epoxy) were prepared by hand lay-up process followed by vacuum bagging method. Thermal properties of MWCNTs doped glass fiber reinforced polymer composites were evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). It has been found that in the presence of MWCNTs it is very difficult to break the polymeric chains and that leads to reduction in cross linking density and glass transition temperature of MWCNTs doped glass fiber reinforced polymer composites as compared to pristine one.