Comparative Study of Lightweight Glass Fiber and Basalt Fiber Sheet Molding Compound (SMC) Composites Containing Cellulose Nanocrystals

摘要

Cellulose nanocrystals are used in lightweight sheet molding compoundcomposites made with either glass fiber (GF)/epoxy or basalt fiber (BF)/epoxy. Thechosen approach for making lightweight SMC composites is replacing portion of theheavier components, i.e. GF or BF, with a small amount of CNC with the constrainthat there is no compromise on mechanical performance. The specific properties ofthe lightweight composites containing CNC are compared with those ofcorresponding composites with no CNC to investigate the effectiveness of usingCNC for light weighting for each type of micro-size reinforcement, i.e. GF and BF.We report that incorporation of 1.4-2 wt% CNC in the epoxy matrix can allow forreduction of the GF from 60 wt% to 44-48 wt% resulting in ~11 % lighter compositeswith no penalty on specific tensile, flexural and impact properties. In contrast, for thecase of BF, addition of CNC does not increase the properties of the light weightedcomposites to the level of BF/epoxy with 60 wt% fiber content.