Evaluation of mechanical behaviour of carbon fiber reinforced nanoclay filled IPN matrix composite

Abstract

A standard ratio of vinyl ester (VER) and polyurethane (PU) were chosen as the blend (matrix) in order to obtain the complete Interpenetrating Polymer Networks (IPN) matrix. In this present study, the mechanical property of the Carbon reinforced IPN (blend) matrix with incorporation of nanoclay (particulate) were studied to find out the mechanical strength of the Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic laminate (CFRP) by altering the nanoclay percentage level of 0%, 1%, 3%, 5%, 7%, and 9%. In addition to that, to assess the mechanical strength of the laminate tests like tensile, flexural and impact were conducted. The test results reveal that, the incorporation of the nanoclay increases the strength of the laminate to many folds; surprisingly the gain of the strength was limited up to the level of 5% nanoclay incorporation. Whereas the deteriorating level of trend were observed for remaining set of nanoclay (7% and 9%) addition. Additionally the fracture specimens were further analysed with help of the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to understand the complete morphology of the rise and fall trend in strength aspect. As well, to validate the experimental results obtained from the mechanical study, were further analysed with help of the analytical software ANSYS. It was found that both the experimental and analytical results were shown the similar trend of the (good agreement) data's with minimum error.