The Toughened Nanocomposite Epoxy Adhesive

In this work, graphene oxide nano-platelets (GOPs) as a modifying phase were dispersed in an epoxy based adhesive with different weight percentages and its effect on the adhesive fracture energy was investigated. Hence, double cantilever beam specimens were fabricated and tested using a universal testing machine. The results indicated that the fracture energy was enhanced markedly by introducing GOPs up to 0.3 weight percentage (wt%) in comparison with the unmodified adhesive and then it started to decrease by adding further GOPs. An improvement of about 70% was observed in the fracture energy of the adhesive modified with 0.3 wt% of GOPs. However, introducing 0.5 wt% of GOPs into the adhesive decreased the fracture energy by 13% compared to the unreinforced adhesive.