PREPARATION AND CHARACTERISATION OF ALUMINA NANOCOMPOSITES WITH ARAMID FIBRE AND HYBRID FIBRE REINFORCEMENTS

S.Charvani, Ch. Gopal Reddy

Abstract: The requirement of light weight and high strength materials are ever increasing in the industry. Lot of research is going on worldwide for improvement of mechanical properties of light weight non-metallic composites. Researchers are trying to meet the industrial requirements by modifying properties of composite materials by making nanocomposites. Nanocomposites are formed by mixing two or more dissimilar materials and adding nanoparticles in order to control and develop new and improved materials and their properties. The properties of composites depend not only upon the individual components used but also upon the morphology and the interfacial characteristics of the ingredients. This novel feature forms the basis of hypothesis to be investigated. In the investigation for high strength materials, laminates of epoxy resin and nanoparticles of Al2O3 as filler are used with Aramid fibre, hybrid of carbon and aramid fibre as reinforcement are produced. Nanoparticles of Al2O3 of 20-30nm size are first dispersed in methanol by mechanical stirring. The solution is further sonicated for effective dispersion of nanoparticles. The mixture of methanol and Al2O3 nanoparticles are mixed in preheated Epoxy resin and mechanically stirred. During mixing some of the methanol is evaporated. Further, the remaining methanol is removed by heating and drying. Then, Hardener is mixed with the mixture of epoxy- Al2O3 and laminates are prepared. The laminates are cut to the required size of test samples for mechanical tests. It is observed that the mechanical properties are improved with the addition of nanoparticles of Al2O3.

Keywords: nanocomposites, bath sonication, Al2O3Nanoparticles

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2015.0403097