Characterization of Mechanical Behavior of Metallic and Non-metallic Particulate Filled Epoxy Matrix Composites

Abstract

Studies were carried out on RT cure epoxy (LY556+HY951) composite system comprised of metallic and non-metallic fillers. The results of the studies carried out on composites with three distinctly different particulate fillers, representing ductile (Cu and Al), brittle (SiC), and soft (Gr) type of materials regarding the mechanical properties, showed that the tensile and flexural strength of the particulate composites degraded with filler loading, whereas the modulus (both tensile and flexural) of the composites increased with the filler loading for the range of filler contents considered (10—40 wt%). The compression strength of all the composites increased to a maximum up to a filler loading of 30% and then decreased beyond this value, with the SiC-Ep composites exhibiting the highest improvement in the compression strength.