Mechanical and thermal behavior of nano-TiO2 enhanced glass fibre reinforced polymeric composites at various crosshead speeds

Abstract

Fibre reinforced polymeric (FRP) are used in different components of aerospace, space, marine, automobile and civil infrastructure. These materials are becoming prime choice of materials in the field of structural components. During their in-service period different structural components experience a wide range of loadings. The current investigation was focused on the assessment of mechanical and thermal behavior of glass FRP composite on the addition of nano-TiO2 particles. The control glass/epoxy(GE) composites and nano-TiO2 modified GE composites were tested at different crosshead speeds viz. 1, 10, 100, 500 and 1000 mm/min. Nano-TiO2 was used as filler material and the epoxy matrix was processed with different nano-TiO2 contents (0.1, 0.3 and 0.5 wt. %). Addition of 0.1 wt. % nano-TiO2 particles exhibited an improvement in strength of nanoTiO2 /GE composites at all crosshead speeds. Different failure patterns of nano-TiO2 enhanced GE composite tested at 1, 10, 100, 500 and 1000 mm/min crosshead speeds were identified. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was carried out to know the main cause of failure that induced different morphologies. Furthermore, the viscoelastic behavior of the material was carried out using dynamic mechanical thermal analyzer which correlated the mechanical and thermomechanical behavior of the FRP composites.