Fracture behavior of silica nanoparticle filled epoxy resin.

摘要

This dissertation involves the addition of silica nanoparticles to a lightly crosslinked, model epoxy resin and investigates the effect of nanosilica content and particle size on glass transition temperature (Tg), coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), Young's modulus (E), yield stress, and fracture toughness. This study aims to understand the influence of silica nanoparticle size, bimodal particle size distribution and silica content on the toughening behavior. The toughening mechanisms were determined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and transmission optical microscopy (TOM).;The approach identifies toughening mechanisms and develops a toughening model from unimodal-particle size systems first, then extends these concepts to various mixtures micron- and nanometer-size particles in a similar model epoxy.;The experimental results revealed that the addition of nanosilica did not have a significant effect on Tg or the yield stress of epoxy resin, i.e. the yield stress and Tg remained constant regardless of nanosilica particle size. As expected, the addition of nanosilica had a significant impact on CTE, modulus and fracture toughness. The CTE values of nanosilica-filled epoxies were found to decrease with increasing nanosilica content, which can be attributed to the much lower CTE of the nanosilica fillers. Interestingly, the decreases in CTE showed strong particle size dependence. The Young's modulus was also found to significantly improve with addition of nanosilica and increase with increasing filler content. However, the particle size did not exhibit any effect on the Young's modulus. Finally, the fracture toughness and fracture energy showed significant improvements with the addition of nanosilica, and increased with increasing filler content. The effect of particle size on fracture toughness was negligible. Observation of the fracture surfaces using SEM and TOM showed evidence of debonding of nanosilica particles, matrix void growth, and matrix shear banding, which are credited for the increases in toughness for nanosilica-filled epoxy systems.;Epoxy containing mixtures of two different size distributions of silica particles (42 micrometer and 23 nm-170nm particles) was explored for possible multiplicative toughening effect and to further understand the particle-epoxy interactions and toughening mechanisms of bimodal particle size distribution systems. The fracture toughness was improved by approximately 30% compared to that of the epoxy containing only one particle size of silica particles. The toughness improvement from the interaction of particle debonding from large particles and plastic void growth from small particles was clearly observed. The improvement in toughness occurred when the volume fraction ratio of the large and small particles was more than 50:50 ratios. The increased toughness was found to be additive not multiplicative effect.