Comparative Study on the Effect of Aluminium Trihydrate and Carbon Nanofillers on Thermal Properties of Glass Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites

EasyChair Preprint 10076

Abstract

High-performance glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites are in greater demand in several industrial applications, from civil structures to the aerospace industry. Epoxy is a high-performance polymer due to its highly cross-linked nature. Further, nanomaterials such as multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) and aluminium trihydrate (ATH) fillers are being explored to improve the thermal properties of composites. Graphene is the most popular 3D nanofiller for epoxy composites. GNP and MWCNT fillers possess a high aspect ratio and a high specific surface area contributing thermal properties of composites. In spite of that, the challenges associated with these nanomaterials, such as dispersion and interaction. The fabricated nanocomposites are based on glass fiber and modified epoxy resin by adding GNP, MWCNT and ATH fillers using pultrusion assisted by ultrasonication. For comparison, composites containing only MWCNT, GNP and ATH were also tested. X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy, were used to evaluate the filler dispersion characterization. The differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis(TGA) were carried out to find the glass transition temperature of composites and thermal analysis. The analysis found that the MWCNT/GNP-ATH composite has enhanced thermal properties due to the addition of ATH filler.

Keyphrases: Differential Scanning Calorimetry, GFRP composites, High performance polymer, Thermal kinetics

@booklet{EasyChair:10076,
  author    = {B M Madhu and Rashmi Aradhya and R R N Sailaja and J Sundara Rajan},
  title     = {Comparative Study on the Effect of Aluminium Trihydrate and Carbon Nanofillers on Thermal Properties of Glass Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 10076},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}