Investigation on Tensile Properties of Glass/Epoxy/Nanosilica Hybrid Nanocomposites

In this research, effect of adding silica nano-particles on the tensile stress-strain response of epoxy matrix composites reinforced with glass fibers was studied. A series of nanocomposites with 0.5, 1 and 3 wt.% nanosilica content and contained 40 vol.% glass fibers were fabricated using the hand lay-up method. The epoxy resin system is made of a diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA), Epon 828, as the epoxy prepolymer and a polyoxypropylene diamine with average molecular weight of 400 gr/mol, Jeffamine D-400, as the curing agent. Static uniaxial tensile tests were conducted to investigate the tensile stress–strain response and tensile properties of unmodified and nanomodified composites. It was found that the incorporation of a well-disperse nanosilica improved the tensile properties of the composites. The addition of 0.5 wt% nanosilica enhanced the tensile strength, ultimate strain and toughness of about 10, 14 and 24%, respectively, compared to the neat composites.