CHARACTERIZATION OF PULTRUBED FIBER REINFORCED HIGH PERFORMANCE POLYMER MATRIX COMPOSITE WITH CARBON NANO TUBES

摘要

Polymer matrix composites (PMC) have established themselves as engineering structural materials, not just as laboratory curiosities or cheap stuff for making chairs and tables. Glass fiber reinforced polymers represent the largest class of PMC. Introducing carbon Nanotubes (CNT) into matrix material enhances the mechanical properties of the composite materials, pultrusion process suites our requirements when compare to other processes. Material such as glass fibers with epoxy resin and cynate ester are used in this process because of their light weight and good mechanical properties. To improve the strength and conductivity of the polymer composite, CNT is used. In the present work, pultrution of 3 mm diameter wire is carried out for glass fiber with epoxy and cynate ester respectively. So volume fraction test is conducted using crucible furnace. CNT is introduced in two different compositions to verify the rate of increase of the mechanical strength and glass transition temperature. To avoid agglomeration of CNT, ultrasonicator is used for proper mixing. Tensile test is carried out using dynamic testing machine and glass transition temperature (Tg) is carried out by using differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) test results indicate that increase in percentage of CNT shows increase in tensile strength of glass fiber reinforced polymer(GFRP).