Processing and Characterization of Hybrid Nanoparticle Infused Structural Fiber Composites

Effective conventional manufacturing techniques are required to integrate the nanomaterial configurations into material systems at a larger component and structural level to obtain the enhanced benefits offered by the material configurations at the nano length scale. A low cost manufacturing process based on vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) is demonstrated for the effective processing of fiber composite laminates using modified epoxy resin systems dispersed with nano and sub-micron alumina oxide particles. The effect of alumina oxide particles on the thermo physical properties (glass transition temperature, etc), are studied via differential scanning calorimetry and thermal gravimetric analysis. Higher glass transition temperatures with the alumina oxide and other nano particulate systems provide an opportunity to use conventional resin systems in high temperature applications. Ultrasonic mixing is employed to uniformly disperse the particles into an epoxy resin system. The flow characteristics of the modified resin system are not significantly different than the neat resin system and allowed the use of traditional VARTM processes successfully. The details of the resin modification and current studies on particulate modification for better interfacial bond are discussed in this paper. Wear performance for reinforced plastics are also investigated in this paper. Composite laminates with S2 glass and modified resins are fabricated. The mechanical behavior of the fabricated composite laminates with the neat and modified resin system using different sized and loading of alumina oxide particles are presented and discussed.