Functionalised silica/epoxy nanocomposites with enhanced fracture toughness for large-scale applications

Wei Han, Yang Yu, Liming Fang, Martin Johnston, Shizhang Qiao, Youhong Tang

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    7 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    A small amount of commercial functional nanosilica was mechanically mixed with epoxy to enhance the composite fracture toughness. Nanosilicas with amino and epoxide functional groups show strong interfaces with epoxy, which suppress large aggregations and enhance resin-wettability, hence enhancing the fracture toughness of epoxy composites. Compared with other reports, less nanosilica content was needed to achieve the same fracture toughness values or similar enhancement ratio. Due to their commercial availability, the low-cost of the raw material and simple fabrication method, those nanocomposites have the potential for large-scale applications.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1439-1447
    Number of pages9
    JournalJOURNAL OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS
    Volume49
    Issue number12
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 4 May 2015

    Keywords

    • epoxy
    • fracture toughness
    • Functionalised nanosilica
    • particle-reinforcement

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Functionalised silica/epoxy nanocomposites with enhanced fracture toughness for large-scale applications'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this