Thermo-mechanical properties of silicon carbide filled chopped glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites

Abstract

The effect of addition of silicon carbide (SiC) filler in different weight percentages on physical properties, mechanical properties, and thermal properties of chopped glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composites has been investigated. Physical and mechanical properties, i.e., hardness, tensile strength, flexural strength, interlaminar shear strength, and impact strength, are determined with the change in filler content to notice the behavior of composite material subjected to loading. Thermo-mechanical properties of the material are measured with the help of a dynamic mechanical analyzer. The result shows that the physical and mechanical properties of SiC-filled glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composites are better than unfilled glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composites. Viscoelastic analysis for different compositions indicate that adding too much SiC content results in degradation in energy absorption capacity of the material and hence overall performance of the composites, whereas adding too much (more than 10 wt.%) SiC content increases the elastic behavior of the composite.