Role of nano silica on mechanical Properties of the brass wire Mesh glass fibre reinforced Hybrid composites

Abstract

The mechanical properties of surface-functionalized crystalline nano-silica in epoxy resin along with Brass wire mesh/Glass fibre (hybrid composites) in different stacking sequences was studied. The main aim of the current study is to investigate the importance of the static and dynamic mechanical properties of surface-functionalized crystalline nano-silica particle reinforced with E-glass fibre and Brass-mesh to form hybrid nanocomposite. Both the particles and fibre were surface-functionalized using 3-Aminopropyletrimethoxyle by wet solution method. The fabrication of hybrid composites was carried out with a hand layup technique with different fibre stacking sequence adhering to ASTM D 3171-99. The mechanical test results show that fibre pattern of L-A-L (Linear-Angled-Linear) with 1.0 vol. % of nano-silica gave the highest flexural and tensile strength. This improvement is because of the following two reasons. The first reason is the effective fibre stacking sequence. The symmetrical form of linear, angled again linear improved the load-bearing capability of fibre. The top layer receives the load and transmits the load to the angled middle layer. When the direction of fibre gets angled the force may split as two-component system. Thus, the stress intensity on the matrix and fibre gets reduces. Lower the stress concentration lowers the risk of failure. As a result, stress concentration gets reduced which simultaneously lowers the risk of failure. This in turn improved the mechanical strength of the material. The second reason is due to the addition of nano-silica particles of 1.0 vol. %. The presence of nano-silica in the resin sustained the presence of moisture and reduces the air bubble and cavity formation which reduces the probability of cracking phenomena. Similarly, the presence of hard nano-silica particles acts as precipitates on the matrix. newline newline newline