Reinforcement of Rubbery Epoxy by Carbon Nanofibres: Short Communication
Reinforcement of Rubbery Epoxy by Carbon Nanofibres: Short Communication
Reinforcement of Rubbery Epoxy by Carbon Nanofibres: Short Communication
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Short communication
Abstract
Experimental results on the reinforcement of rubbery epoxy by carbon nanofibres (CNFs) are presented. The modulus increase,
measured above and below the glass transition temperature for nanofibre contents up to 10 wt.%, is low. The interest of CNF is in
the improvement of the ultimate stress and strain. Both are largely increased, even for very low fibre content, and are improved
compared with the reinforcement obtained with carbon blacks.
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Fig. 1. TEM observation of the nanofibres from a dried cast toluene Fig. 2. SEM photography of the fracture surface (end of a tensile test)
solution. of a CNF-reinforced epoxy resin (5 wt.% CNF).
346 P. Richard et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A352 (2003) 344 /348
Fig. 3. Elastic shear modulus G ? as a function of temperature (f /0.1 Hz) for different CNF-reinforced epoxy resins.
In the glassy state, considering the range of filler added fillers. The flexibility of the fibres and the bad
concentration studied, the increase of the elastic mod- interface with the matrix may also be involved. More-
ulus is quasi-linear with a slope of 2.2Gm (Gm being the over, it has already been observed that the nanoscopic
matrix modulus) as shown in Fig. 5a. At T /296 K, in size of the fillers does not lead to an increase of modulus
the rubbery plateau, the evolution is still linear but this higher than that obtained with micro-size fillers, when
time with a slope of 6Gm (cf. Fig. 5b). the matrix is in the glassy state [12,13]. The reinforce-
Tensile tests were performed at ambient temperature ment in the rubbery plateau is more important, due to
on an MTS device (MTS 1/ME) with a constant cross- the larger contrast of modulus between the fibres and
head speed equal to 5 mm min 1. The samples were cut the matrix, combined to a large aspect ratio. It is,
in normalised H4 shape. The deduced stress /strain however, difficult to conclude on the effect of the
curves are presented in Fig. 6. Each curve of Fig. 6 nanoscopic size of these fibres.
corresponds to the average of five measurements. The The addition of nanofibres also increases elongation
increase of modulus is consistent with the measurements and stress at break. For only 5% wt. of nanofibres,
from DMA. Below Tg, the reinforcement in terms of elongation at break increases of about 100% while a
modulus is low. These results are comparable with that 270% increase is found for stress. Such significant
obtained with polycarbonate composites [8]. In both improvement could be the consequence of strong filler/
cases, the increase of modulus for 10% of fibre content is matrix interaction. However, SEM photography of the
about 40%. It is not surprising due to the amount of fracture surface obtained after a tensile test shows fibres
Fig. 4. Loss modulus G ?? as a function of temperature (f /0.1 Hz) for different CNF-reinforced epoxy resins.
P. Richard et al. / Materials Science and Engineering A352 (2003) 344 /348 347
Fig. 5. (a) Elastic shear modulus G ? of CNF-reinforced epoxy resins as a function of CNF weight fraction, at 200 K (below Tg); (b) elastic shear
modulus G ? of CNF-reinforced epoxy resins as a function of CNF weight fraction, at 296 K (in the rubbery plateau).
5. Conclusion