Flexural strength, toughness, and fracture properties of polyester composites

摘要

AbstractFlexural behavior of particle‐filled fiber‐reinforced polyester composite was investigated by varying the polymer and fiber contents. The polymer content was varied between 10 and 18 of the total weight of the polyester composite (PC) and the glass fiber content was varied up to 6 (by weight of PC). The chopped glass fibers were 13 mm long. The fine aggregates were well graded, with particle size varying from 0.1 to 5 mm, and were mainly composed of quartz. The fine aggregates and glass fibers were also pretreated with a coupling agent (γ‐methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane, γ‐MPS) to improve the mechanical and fracture properties of the polyester composites. In general, the addition of fibers increased the flexural strength, toughness, fracture properties, and failure strain (strain at peak stress), but the flexural modulus of polyester composites remained almost unchanged. The addition of 6 fiber content and silane treatment increased flexural strength of 18 PC by 95 to 41.6 MPa (6,040 psi). Crack resistance curves, based on the stress intensity factor (KR‐curve), have been developed for the fiber‐reinforced PC systems. A two‐parameter relationship was used to predict the complete flexural stress‐strain data. There is good agreement between the predicted and measured stress‐strain relationships. © 1993