Influence of carbon nanoparticle geometry in epoxy matrix on mechanical properties and failure initiation regarding the size effect

Citation
ICCM International Conferences on Composite Materials : (2017-08)
Contribution to Conference
21st International Conference on Composite Materials, ICCM 2017  
The influence of carbon nanoparticle morphology in epoxy on the mechanical properties is investigated regarding the size effect. Three types of particles are used, representing spherical, tubular and layered morphologies. For neat and carbon black modified epoxy, a clear size effect of increasing true failure strength with decreasing volume is found. Carbon nanotube modified epoxy shows high potential for strength increase, but dispersion and purity are critical. Few layer graphene particles are larger than statistically distributed defects in the epoxy and initiate cracks, counteracting any size effect. Different toughness increasing mechanisms on the nano- and micro-scale depending on particle morphology are discussed.
Subjects
Carbon black
Carbon nanotubes
Failure initiation
Few layer graphene
Fractography
DDC Class
620: Ingenieurwissenschaften
More Funding Information
This work was carried out with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the project number FI 688/5-1. The second author kindly acknowledges the financial support from Landesforschungsförderung Hamburg (project: Health-Monitoring von Faserverbundstrukturen mit Hilfe von Sensorarrays, grant number LFF-FV 05).