Fracture Toughness of Toughened Amine Cured Epoxy System - Analysis of Bulk and Glass Fibre Composite Materials

摘要

This paper describes the fracture behaviour of an amine cured epoxy system when it is toughened with rubber particles and silica nanoparticles. The study is a continuation of previous work carried out by the same group [1], where it has been demonstrated that adding rubber and silica nanoparticles to an anhydride-cured epoxy system resulted in a significant, synergistic, increase in toughness. The same toughened epoxies when used as the matrix in fibre composite laminates have also shown a remarkable toughening effect. They also observed that the increases in bulk epoxy toughness were transferred to the fibre composites. However, it is known that the microstructure and toughenability can vary from one epoxy system to another.