Epoxy-based polymer composites are used in the aerospace industry due to high strength, less shrinkage, and ready availability. However, they are brittle and this limitation is usually addressed by using additives. Soft additives typically increase the toughness at the cost of stiffness and are usually not preferred for high strength applications. On the contrary, rigid additives such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and nanoclay increase the stiffness and tensile strength, but at the expense of strain at failure, indicating embrittlement. Also, these additives are expensive and this adds up to the overall product cost, limiting its application. Thus, this study aims to introduce a new low-cost, high aspect ratio additive that toughens epoxy without compromising on its strength. Tensile test and impact test were conducted to procure mechanical properties for the composite, along with fractography using electron microscopy. These tests revealed that this new additive increased the tensile strength, impact strength, and strain at failure by 56%, 60%, and 200% for a very low weight fraction of 0.5% of the additive.
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