Synthesis and Characterization of Glass Particulate – Epoxy Composite for Structural Application

Abstract

The objective of this present project work is to prepare and study of the mechanical properties of glass particulate- epoxy composites. A vast amount of research was carried out involving different morphologies of the glass particulates, for e.g. spherical, flakes, rounded etc., for synthesizing epoxy-glass composites. But in this thesis, crushed laboratory waste glasses with acicular morphology were used as a reinforcement to prepare polymer matrix composite material. Five different compositions of the glass particulate, viz., 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 vol% have been used in the present work. Detailed characterizations like density measurement, X-ray analysis was done for these composite materials, subsequently these polymer matrix composites with different content of glass particulate were subjected to various types of mechanical testing. It was found that tensile properties were increasing from 0 to 5 vol% of reinforcement content, after that a decreasing trend was observed. But other properties like flexural, impact, compression properties were decreasing as compared to the epoxy resin. This work also described about the comparison of the mechanical properties of composites before and after post curing, carried out at 100oC for 15 minutes.