Abstract
The main objective of the presented study is to improve the performance of composite structures by introducing nanoparticles/fibers in the epoxy resin. The literature on this issue showed shortcomings in the investigations of such materials. Most of the investigations in this field are to enhance the mechanical properties of epoxy materials, which cannot be used alone for high performance structural applications due to their low mechanical properties. In the present work, the epoxy resin was modified with these different types of nanofillers such as silicon carbide (SiC) and alumina (Al2O3) nanoparticles. The nanophased epoxy was used to fabricate different types of nanocomposites as well as nano-hybridized glass fiber reinforced composite laminates. Therefore, nine different advanced materials have been fabricated including two nanocomposite materials (SiC/E and Al2O3/E), two quasi-isotropic nano-hybridized composite laminates (QI-GFR/SiC/E and QI-GFR/Al2O3/E), two unidirectional nano-hybridized composite laminates (UD-GFR/SiC/E and UD-GFR/Al2O3/E), and three control panels manufactured without nanofillers (neat epoxy, QIGFR/E, UD-GFR/E). The materials were characterized under tension and compression. The results showed improvements in the tensile and compressive properties (strength and modulus) of the fabricated nanocomposites (SiC/E, and Al2O3/E) compared with neat epoxy. The hybridized composite laminate with Al2O3 showed high improvements in its mechanical properties compared to the composite laminates without nanofillers. In contrast, discouraging mechanical properties were observed for SiC hybridized composite laminate. Due to the many variables studied in the present work, the literature list will be long. The investigated parameters include nanofillers, nanocomposites, nano-hybridized advanced composite laminates, mechanical properties, glass transition temperature (T-g), bolted joint parameters and sonication parameters.